Customer Service Matters And Here's The Billion-Dollar Reason

By Ryan Wehner, Quintiq

A regular customer steps into your store to get a particular brand of organic cereal that she’s been buying for the past year. Failing to locate the cereal at the usual shelf and anywhere else along the aisle, she scans the store for someone to help her. It’s noon – peak period for just about any retail outlet – yet there aren’t any store assistants around. She leaves in disappointment and heads to a competitor store down the block.

Guess what – a single moment of customer frustration could cost you billions of dollars.

One bad experience is all it takes to break a customer’s loyalty. Take a quick look at your store management. Do your customers get a consistently pleasant in-store experience, or do they have to go through inconveniences such as long lines at the cash register?

Your customers, current and potential, have spoken: A majority of them stop buying after a bad customer service interaction. That’s not all. 48% of customers who have had negative experiences went on to tell more than 10 people about it.