How many times have you heard people complain that customer service is dead? That no one cares and that companies only want to make money? Everyone has a horror story about being placed on hold as endless minutes, that seem like hours, tick by. When you finally talk to a rep, they are uncaring, rude and sometimes downright nasty. At the end of it all, you wonder if anyone is going to take ownership of your issue.
I recently came across some stats on “the price of bad customer service” that got me thinking. Did you know, for example, that a whopping 67% of consumers surveyed* in the U.S. alone ended a business relationship due to a poor customer service experience? Or that the improvement most asked for by consumers is “better human service”? Or that the most important factor in a satisfying customer experience is a “competent customer service representative”?
More importantly, bad customer service affects companies’ bottom line, and ultimately industries as a whole. U.S. businesses lose $83 BILLION each year as a direct result of poor customer service. So don’t just give lip service to the notion of good customer service. It will cost you more than lost customers.
By the way, I am pleased to tell you that customer service is indeed not dead but alive and thriving at Internap. In fact, our annual customer support satisfaction rating on a scale of 1 to 10 is an 8.62 compared to an industry average of 8.31 and a peer group average of 6.9.**
*Source: 2009 Genesys Global survey of Consumer Attitudes
**Source: 2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted by Technology Services Industry Association(TSIA).
