I have just been on the phone to my Internet service provider. I called them to enquire about adding a new service to my account. I waited patiently for 15 minutes, before hanging up and calling one of their competitors. I started off wanting to spend more money with a service provider and 15 minutes later, I was giving my account to their biggest rival; who answered my call within 20 seconds!
The interesting thing here, was that all the while I was hanging on the line, a recorded announcement assured me that my call was important and that they were “doing everything possible” to answer my call. (With the obvious exception of picking up the receiver!)
They lost my business and I’m guessing they will lose lots more, unless they improve things very quickly.
Marketing promises
Sadly, many companies fail to live up to the promises in their marketing. Every business I have ever studied promises to ‘go the extra mile,’ yet as we all know, great customer service is all too rare. It’s so rare that when we experience great customer service, it REALLY stands out and gives the companies that provide it a huge, competitive advantage.
Customer service
That’s why companies like Apple and Zappo’s have been able to develop a strong reputation for offering great service. They work really hard to ensure that what they promise and what they deliver are the same or that the service you receive is even better than you expected.
In other words, they gain a massive advantage in the marketplace, by simply doing what everyone else promises to do!
I think we can all benefit, by taking time-out to ensure that we are fulfilling OUR marketing promises. More than that, we need to constantly look out for new ways to increase the value of our services to the marketplace.
If we don’t, someone else will!
Related posts:
Jim, if more people actually went ahead and did what you did today the message would be loud and clear! While your post is an important reminder for organizations to walk the talk, the unfortunate thing is that many people don’t act on the impulse to leave due to a company not living up to their promises; the pain of changing seems to be stronger than the pain of staying. Or, perhaps they are afraid that the next guy is just going to not deliver on different promises…
I agree with Keli. Unfortunately, switching to a new company is often times as much of a pain as it is staying with the horrible company.
Seems to end up being the lesser of two evils. Sad part is, they shouldn’t all be evils.
Keli,
Thanks for the comment.
I am not sure if you know this or not, but it is a very small minority of customers, who will stay with a provider who treats them badly.
Customers are smart and today more so than ever, will take their business elsewhere if they think they are being mistreated by a provider.
In marketing, we know that there is a direct link between how good a company’s customer service is and how good their customer retention is. This is sometimes called their ‘attrition’ rate.
Whilst ’some’ customers will put up with poor service for a while, most will very quickly (and often vocally) move on.
As Seth Godin said recently on his blog, today’s customer is very powerful – because they have so many social media tools, which they can use to hurt a company’s reputation.
If you piss them off, you are lucky if all they do is switch providers!
In my experience, it’s totally incorrect to suggest that it’s ok to offer below par service, because customers will just take it.
They won’t.
Heres the quote from Seth you were on about Jim.
(Back when every consumer was alone, you could ignore the few angry ones and use the money you saved to run more ads. But now? Now in the DFC era, do you really have any choice?
Angry phone calls are your friend. They’re your friend because the alternative is angry tweets and angry blog posts.)
Hoping this helps.
Ralph,
Thanks for that. The full post from Seth is here and well worth reading:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/direct-from-consumer-marketing.html