Customer Service is Becoming More Important than Ever

We should clarify that the most important part of customer service is delivering good customer service as well as striving to provide your customers an excellent customer experience. Why is customer service becoming so important for businesses and marketing departments? Social media, online reviews, and word of mouth are making customer service part of marketing and making it very important for customers to receive an experience worthy of not only their repeat business, but their recommendation to their friends, followers, and network of online contacts.

Below is a customer service infographic from Peter Shankman, author of Nice Companies Finish First.

Some of the important customer service facts that stand out from this infographic are:

• Consumers tell 15 people about good experiences but they tell 24 people about bad experiences.
• 20% of consumers left a regular service provider due to poor customer service in 2012
• $83 BILLION is estimated to be the annual loss to U.S. businesses due to poor customer service
• The average customer would have spent an average of $289 with a business if they didn’t have a negative experience.
• 85% of consumers who have quit a business say they would have remained a customer if the business had acted differently to prevent them from switching.
• 66% of consumers are willing to spend more with a company they believe provides excellent customer service.
• It costs 5 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep those you already have.