The True Cost Of Bad Customer Service

Many companies make the mistake to only focus on the obvious, is the phone ringing? are we closing sales?

But there are many other, less obvious (I don’t want to say “hidden”) aspects of business, that directly affect the bottom line. Customer service is one of them.

In a way, social media has helped bring customer service to the very front end of business. Customer services is no longer a “behind-the-scenes” thing. We’ve always known that is easier to keep an existing customer than finding a new one but, in the era of “everything is public”, it also plays a big role on the marketing of the company.

The customer service department today is capable of making your company a success story or simply destroy it.

This is why I love the phrase used by HelpScout in the Infographic below.

“Customer service is the new marketing”

If you’re not convinced yet that your company, startup or even freelance business needs to put more focus in providing stellar support, here are some important stats you should consider:

• 86% will stop doing business with your company because of bad service experiences
• 51% will only give you one chance
• And the scariest problem in all this is that companies only hear from 4% of unhappy customers

See the opportunity?

There is one more number I want to point out to leave you on a positive note. While it is scary to see that only 10% of online merchants made the cut for “stellar” service, you should see this as an opportunity to enforce your customer satisfaction, this could very well translate into grabbing a bigger piece of the pie in your niche.