A subject that I find very important in marketing and business in general is customer service. It is a factor that many companies leave on the back burner and simply hope will work it out itself rather than putting a great deal of focus on it. This week I found a great blog article socialmouths.com dealing with the negative effects of bad customer service. Many businesses don't realize just how costly bad customer service can be. More than 85% of customers will stop doing business with a company because of bad customer service and of the customers who have a bad experience, only 4% will let the company know. Businesses need to be very aware of how their service is and should make a consistent effort to ask customers what they think instead of waiting for them to speak up.
Another side of bad customer service is word of mouth. It is shown that a happy customer will tell 9 people about a good encounter with a business, while an unhappy customer will tell 16. This means that the company not only loses out on the business of the first unhappy customer, but also all the people that they will tell about the event. Companies need to understand that now more than ever they must really focus on strong customer service.
One great thing about social media is that is can play a great role in helping a company create a relationship with customers. Social media allows customer service to be obvious to the customer and makes all service public instead of behind the scenes. Businesses need to take advantage of this chance to get good customer service examples in front of customers and potential customers. Understanding the importance of good customer service is only half the battle. Having a competent and friendly staff and really caring about the customer will ultimately lead to greater profit and a more prominent business.
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