Customer neglect and poor customer service are epidemic these days. Here’s fascinating data on why customers leave:
- 1% – Customer dies
- 3% – Customer moves away
- 5% – Customer gets friend to provide service
- 9% – Customer is persuaded to go to competitor
- 14% – Customer is dissatisfied with your service
- 68% – Customer believes you don’t care about them
What’s often not talked about with the findings above are the deeper, internal reasons, people distrust most businesses and mentally stack up in their minds hidden reasons to look around at alternatives and eventually move onto someone else.
I always like to reveal new content of value and during my small boot camps and last week I shared a special session on Day 1 titled: Why Customers (Really Leave: What They Don’t Teach at Harvard Business School.
Here are five of the ten reasons why customers (really) leave from the session I presented last week in Vegas.
#1. Hidden employee resentment. Yes, it is real and costs businesses millions of dollars in sales and repeat business.
#2. Experience incongruency. This occurs when high end product or service providers cut corners in the name of cost savings much to the chagrin of customers who expect a much better experience.
#3: Making it difficult or a hassle to do business with them. A clue: why do you think Amazon.com focuses so heavily on making it easier, safer, and faster for people to buy online
#4: The company they buy from is boring. I’ve said for years that complacency in marketing = slow business death. Far too many businesses take their customers for granted and offer little, if anything new or unique until it’s too late or after a hungry, new competitor has stolen the attention spotlight.
#5: They don’t thank or recognize their customers for their patronage. People want to know that their opinion matters and people they refer are being treated well. In a sped up society the simplest thing such as a good old-fashioned, hand-written thank you note goes a long, long way in letting customers know you are grateful for their business.
There you have it, 5 reasons Why Customers Really Leave. I’d like to hear your horror stories on why customers leave. In future posts we’ll look at them and offer up solutions.
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