Leadership

Poor Customer Service is All About Missing the Obvious

By Andy Hanselman

Updated on: July 6, 2010 / 4:09 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

A new study from Satmetrix shows that companies are wasting billions on attracting new customers through advertising then losing them by delivering a poor customer experience.

It estimates that this poor experience has forced over 10 million consumers in the UK to switch suppliers in the last six months alone.

The main culprits for this switching epidemic are unfair fees, poor product or service quality and rude or disinterested employees.

When asked if they had stopped doing business with a company within the last six months due to a bad customer experience, 24 percent said yes. The reasons? You can guess most of them:

23 percent -- Unfair fees or charges.
22 percent -- Poor product or service quality.
19 percent -- Rude or disinterested employees
12 percent -- Couldn't get hold of anyone to deal with my problem
7 percent -- Discounts for new customers but not for existing customers
4 percent -- Inadequate return or refund policy
5 percent -- Out of territory call centres
1 percent -- Inadequate environmental policy
7 percent -- Other

OK, you might be saying there's nothing new here, it's all obvious stuff. But that's the point isn't it?

It is obvious stuff, so why aren't businesses getting the message? Maybe, just maybe, many people read the figures and think that those businesses highlighted are the others, it doesn't happen in their business.

I know you're not thinking like that. It doesn't happen in your business, does it? Well, just in case there is the tinyest chance that it might happen in your business, you might just want to take a few minutes out at your next management or team meeting and put these figures on the agenda and then ask:

What do they mean for us?
How do we compare?
How do we know?

To help you get this stuff on the agenda within the whole business and not just meetings, here are 10 other questions to consider.

Ask your customers:

How easy are we to buy from?
What irritates or annoys you about us?
Are you completely happy with what we do for you?

Ask your people:

What irritates or annoys our customers?
What stops you delivering outstanding service to our customers?
How can we 'demonstrate' to our customers that we care about them?

Ask yourself:

Why do our customers switch? (If you don't know, then find out!)
When was the last time I actually had a conversation with a customer to find out what they think about us?
Who could we learn from when it comes to looking after customers -- who does it well?

And a final question:

What are we going to do as a result of the answers to these questions?

It's all about putting your efforts into keeping your customers. Having put all that time, money, resources and effort to win customers, for goodness sake, look after them.

(Pic: David Blackwell cc2.0)