Today my company published a new report on customer service. It’s called: “The State of Customer Service” and it offers a glimpse of what real people think about customer service these days. Surprisingly, the news is not all gloom and doom.
But it does suggest that, in general, organizations need to continue working hard to improve their service. The first surprising thing about the report is that 53.8% of the respondents think customer service is about average. In fact, only 12.5% feel it’s below average. But then again, average is not very good. Average will not win you any medals and these days it might just put you out of business.
Almost half (46.7%) of the respondents feel customer service has gotten worse in the past 12 months while only 11.4% feel it has improved.
Right away I’d say this presents a huge opportunity for many businesses. Since 68% of customers leave a company because of bad service, we know that good service is key to maintaining customer loyalty. And, if most businesses are delivering average (or below average) service then it shouldn’t take much to do better than the competition. Making an investment in improving customer service could pay big dividends. These days, it might mean the difference between barely surviving and possibly dominating your market.
Another valuable aspect of this report is that it has real comments from people on what makes for good and bad service. It shows us what real customers want from the organizations they do business with. This could be valuable information as you seek to improve the service your company delivers.
You can download the full report by clicking here.
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Hi Kevin,
There is indeed alot of opportunity for improvement! A company should never become complacent when it comes to customer service. Instead, they should work on improving it every day – even if 99% of their customers are satisfied.
Hi Maria – you are so right. Once we (as customers) our happy with a certain level of service, it becomes the expected norm – at least from that company. So, if the company fails to improve, from the customer’s perspective, they’re not getting better. Plus, the world changes constantly so resting on our laurels never works for long. Thanks for your comment!