Consumers Bail If Service Is Bad (...duh)

According to the 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer consumers who have used social media for service tell significantly more people about their service experiences, and say they’d spend 21% more with companies who deliver great service, compared to 13% on average.
The survey reveals a sorry state of service in general, pointing that 93% of Americans surveyed say that companies fail to exceed their service expectations, while 55% walked away from an intended purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience.
Jim Bush, Executive Vice President, World Service, American Express, says “... delivering outstanding service creates impassioned advocates and can serve as a powerful marketing weapon for companies...”
People who have used social media for customer service at least once in the last year are willing to spend substantially more with companies they believe provide great service. They are also far more vocal about service experiences, both good and bad.  In addition, more than 80% of these consumers say they’ve bailed on a purchase because of a poor service experience, compared to 55% overall.

Consumer Attitudes About Customer Service
Service Topic	Consumers  Who Haven’t Used Social Media for Customer Service	General Population	Consumers Who Have Used Social Media for Customer Service
Additional amount consumers are willing to spend for excellent service	11% more	13% more	21% more
Have not completed an intended purchase because of a poor customer service experience in the past year	49%	55%	83%
Number of people consumers will tell about good customer service experiences	9 people	15 people	42 people
Number of people consumers will tell about bad customer service experiences	17 people	24 people	53 people
Source: AmericanExpress, May 2012

The “Social Top 5” activities for Americans who have used social media for customer service:

• 50% Seek an actual response from a company about a service
• 48% Praise a company for a great service experience
• 47%Share information about your service experience with a wider audience
• 46%Vent frustration about a poor service experience
• 43% Ask other users how to have better service experiences

However, 60% of this group feels companies have improved their response times through social media over the past year.
Social media is not the only way people are spreading the word about their customer service experiences, says the report. The general population will tell significantly more people about their customer service experiences than in 2011, highlighting the importance for businesses of treating every customer interaction as an opportunity to build customer loyalty and a positive brand image.

• Americans will tell an average of 15 people about positive experiences, up 67% from 9 last year
• Americans will tell an average of 24 people about poor experiences, up 50% from 16 in 2011 

According to the report, 61% of Americans feel companies have not increased their focus on providing better service, and of this group, 32% feel businesses are paying lessattention to providing good customer service, an increase from 2011.
35% of respondents report that they have lost their temper with a service professional in the past year.  When asked about the top customer service irritants most likely to lead them to switch brands in 2012, 79% cited one of these “Big Four Gripes”:

• Rudeness:  An insensitive or unresponsive customer service representative, 33%
• Passing the Buck:  Being shuffled around with no resolution of the issue, 26%
• The Waiting Game:  Waiting too long to have an issue resolved, 10%
• Being Boomeranged:  Forced to continually follow up on an issue, 10% 

The average consumer hits his or her boiling point after 13 minutes on hold, creating a golden opportunity for companies to increase customer satisfaction by beating the clock.  Similarly, Americans will wait an average of 12 minutes for in-person help at establishments such as banks, retail stores or restaurants.

Brookline Booksmith celebrates 50 years

Brookline Booksmith celebrates 50 years

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/how_they_get_away_with_obstruction/singleton/

Stop Ignoring the Needs of Mature Customers -- THEY'RE the Ones With the Money!

Mature consumers also complain that most stores are not only understaffed but also that the staff on hand is not trained well enough to help them. Most respondents, 63% under 70, and 75% over 70, say they would like to be able to sit down in stores. On the whole, mature consumers want and expect a sympathetic understanding of the realities of age, but they do not want to be treated as old or elderly. Read the entire story and report results at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/160330/older-and-wiser-mature-customers-needs.html#reply

The customer is Always Right? NOT!

http://bookshopblog.com/2011/10/10/the-customer-is-always-right/

Logging in

Why do companies that run websites and want customer interaction make it difficult to do so by compelling customers remember a user name and password?

The answer, of course, is that the login requirement comes from the registration requirement that allows the company to collect data about us, its customers and prospects. And while I'm sure many people, like me, use the same password for everything so we don't have to remember 100 different ones, more often than not, the user name I wish to use is already taken so I have to come up with some variation of it that will be "allowed" yet still easily recalled.

The point is that if I see something on a site that I want to make a quick comment about, I have to jump through hoops to make that comment. So the bottom line is: companies, and media, would rather have our information so they can design marketing messages to try to talk us into something we don't want or need -- marketing at us -- rather than learning what we think or want or feel, so that they can inform us about the products and services they have that will benefit us; that is, market to us.

VistaPrint Falls Twice in Two Weeks

DEaling with an online printing company which I'm happy to acknowledge has been pretty good about customer service for the last couple of years, and from which I've received some very good quality products.... but two recent incidents are infuriating.

1) I have an email account for my author marketing group set-up with VistaPrint. A couple of weeks ago I suddenly couldn't send, only receive messages. I called customer service. After a few minutes the CSR (customer service representative) came back on the phone and said someone else had to talk to me because she couldn't find the problem. She promised he would call back in an hour when he arrived. No call back, so I had to call the next day. Someone else did figure out the problem -- that I had been reported for spamming, which was untrue (I pass along email messages about author and book marketing to group members). More importanmt is the fact that I was never notified -- they just cut of my email-sending ability.

2) And this has happened before: I emailed customer service about a problem (specifically, the tracking number they porovided me for a recent order was, according to UPS, invalid). The response? A link to the same invalid tracking number in the form of a form letter.

Perhaps I shouldn't be complaining since many of the VistaPrint products I've ordered over the last two years are free. I have, though, paid for many others, and in fact this order totaled more than $213 with S/H. But whether free or not, the promise is to deliver products (and services, in the case of the email account, which I am paying for) and provide the service to back them up.