Here’s the big fact: 98% of all dissatisfied customers were not dissatisfied because of a quality problem with the product or service purchased. In 98% of the cases their dissatisfaction was related to their perception of how they were treated by the people they dealt with.
McDonald’s Restaurants notes that over 70% of the complaints that were serious enough to be escalated to a manager where “the clerk was rude, uncommunicative or would not listen to me.” These complaints had nothing to do with the quality of the food or the speed it was delivered.
Note that I said the customers “perception of how they were treated” – not how they were treated. This is very significant. It means that in some, maybe many of those cases, the employees involved actually treated the customers fairly, courteously and tried to do the best they could. However, what they did is not the issue. It’s how the customer perceived what they did that counts.
Customer success is about controlling the customer’s perception. In other words, being right is not as important as winning in the relationship with the customer. The #1 reason why businesses lose customers is their perception that they were treated discourteously or unfairly by the company’s people with whom they interacted. Considering 90% of all new sales reps within 5 years customer success can mean the difference between staying in business and making real commissions, and never getting off your base salary.
If you chose to concentrate on Customer Success it you can make a big difference in your win loss record of keeping customers. Remember, to the customer you are your company.
A recent example is the airline industry. Everybody loves to criticize the airlines, and the industry’s complaints from passengers have skyrocketed recently. Everyone traveling is experiencing problems with cancelled or delayed flights, lost luggage and an apparently declining quality of service.
One airline gate agent said in USA today recently, “Imagine how difficult it is coming to work every morning knowing in advance that you are going to have to deal with a lot of people who are angry and frustrated with you.” And she went on to say, “Even though it’s not our fault to these people… we’re the airline.”
She’s right of course. She, her counterparts and the flight attendants are the airline to the passenger. The executives are so out of reach that they are not real to the customer. Many of these airline employees have become tremendous customer service diplomats. They are saving the airline they work for buying it time to straighten out its problems without losing its customers in the process. It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking at the airlines or a retail store or a restaurant or even an online business.
Anyone who actually communicates with a customer though the phones email or face to face interactions control the company’s destiny. I use the word destiny deliberately. You see repeat business is absolutely critical to most companies.
There is a substantial cost attached to acquiring each new customer. All of the dollars spent on advertising promotion, publicity, signage and so on to bring the new customer in the door or cause the new customer to call the first time. In many, many businesses companies really lose money on the first sale to a new customer.
The profit that insures your company staying in business and growing its business is in the second, third and fourth sales to that same customer. Without this repeat business most businesses fail and this repeat business has more to do with Customer Success than with anything else even including the goods or services themselves.
This is an important subject for everyone to grasp and in future lessons we will be looking at ideas you can easily implement to improve Customer Success and increase sales.
Dedicated to increasing your sales
http://www.engageselling.com/
McDonald’s Restaurants notes that over 70% of the complaints that were serious enough to be escalated to a manager where “the clerk was rude, uncommunicative or would not listen to me.” These complaints had nothing to do with the quality of the food or the speed it was delivered.
Note that I said the customers “perception of how they were treated” – not how they were treated. This is very significant. It means that in some, maybe many of those cases, the employees involved actually treated the customers fairly, courteously and tried to do the best they could. However, what they did is not the issue. It’s how the customer perceived what they did that counts.
Customer success is about controlling the customer’s perception. In other words, being right is not as important as winning in the relationship with the customer. The #1 reason why businesses lose customers is their perception that they were treated discourteously or unfairly by the company’s people with whom they interacted. Considering 90% of all new sales reps within 5 years customer success can mean the difference between staying in business and making real commissions, and never getting off your base salary.
If you chose to concentrate on Customer Success it you can make a big difference in your win loss record of keeping customers. Remember, to the customer you are your company.
A recent example is the airline industry. Everybody loves to criticize the airlines, and the industry’s complaints from passengers have skyrocketed recently. Everyone traveling is experiencing problems with cancelled or delayed flights, lost luggage and an apparently declining quality of service.
One airline gate agent said in USA today recently, “Imagine how difficult it is coming to work every morning knowing in advance that you are going to have to deal with a lot of people who are angry and frustrated with you.” And she went on to say, “Even though it’s not our fault to these people… we’re the airline.”
She’s right of course. She, her counterparts and the flight attendants are the airline to the passenger. The executives are so out of reach that they are not real to the customer. Many of these airline employees have become tremendous customer service diplomats. They are saving the airline they work for buying it time to straighten out its problems without losing its customers in the process. It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking at the airlines or a retail store or a restaurant or even an online business.
Anyone who actually communicates with a customer though the phones email or face to face interactions control the company’s destiny. I use the word destiny deliberately. You see repeat business is absolutely critical to most companies.
There is a substantial cost attached to acquiring each new customer. All of the dollars spent on advertising promotion, publicity, signage and so on to bring the new customer in the door or cause the new customer to call the first time. In many, many businesses companies really lose money on the first sale to a new customer.
The profit that insures your company staying in business and growing its business is in the second, third and fourth sales to that same customer. Without this repeat business most businesses fail and this repeat business has more to do with Customer Success than with anything else even including the goods or services themselves.
This is an important subject for everyone to grasp and in future lessons we will be looking at ideas you can easily implement to improve Customer Success and increase sales.
Dedicated to increasing your sales
http://www.engageselling.com/
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