Through a special arrangement, what follows is a summary of an article from COLLOQUY, provider of loyalty-marketing publishing, education and research since 1990.
According to a survey from thinkJar, 13 percent of customers who are unhappy and frustrated about an interaction tell a whopping 15 or more others about it. And 91 percent of non-complainers simply leave.
This definitely jibes with research LoyaltyOne Consulting has conducted with Verde Group and Wharton School professor of marketing and psychology Deborah Small. A silently irate customer, in fact, is a company's worst enemy.
Indeed, problem experiences are much more predictive of actual behavior, yet companies overwhelmingly tend to spend the lion's share of their time, money and focus on creating positive experiences, chasing an often-elusive "wow" moment for consumers.
Verde's CEO Paula Courtney explains it this way: "It's not sexy to go to market with a purposeful and deliberate plan to understand pain, yet it is the single biggest predictor of why people stop doing business with you."
Not only do companies neglect analysis of negative customer experiences, but they tend to focus attention on attitudes that aren't going to move the needle enough. We call it the "squeaky wheel syndrome."
At grocers, for example, the complaints that get the most noise — say, long checkout lines — get the most attention. But a problem that might be much less reported, such as poor selection or quality at the deli counter, could actually be much more worthy of attention, affecting fewer customers, perhaps, but more high-spending and high-impact ones.
Gartner calls CX the new battleground and found that 89 percent of companies had hoped to be competing primarily on the basis of CX by 2016. In fact, 64 percent of those it surveyed said customer experience is more important than price in their choice of a brand. The battle lines have been drawn.