“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” (Otto Von Bismark)
I love this quote and it’s so true, especially in the world of customer service.
Considering the wealth of research that has been carried out about customer service both in the US and the UK we should have learned lots – there are heaps of facts and statistics to show us the way forward in our business.
If we’re clever these should inform the way we think, act and speak about and to our customers. This information should form the bedrock of our approach.
Here at FIT we talk about making sure our customers have a Positive Memorable Experience each and every time, and here are key learns to show us why:
- 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain – 91% of them will just leave! (1st Financial Training services.) Can we really afford that to happen when we know that to acquire a new customer costs us 5 times more than it does to retain an existing customer?
- A customer who is not happy will tell between 9-15 people about their experience. Scarily about 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. (White House Office of Consumer Affairs) Did you know it can take 10 years to build a reputation and only 10 minutes to ruin it?
- It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience – (“Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner) Yes, that’s right, a DOZEN. That’s a huge figure when you think about the number of customers you have.
The benefit of hindsight is a marvellous thing.
So I guess the message behind this blog is that we ignore this information at our peril!
It is costly, time consuming and potentially damaging to learn from your own mistakes, especially when you can be smart, and learn from others!
Keep FIT!
