The holiday season is upon us, and customer service is a major factor that can help turn those one-time shoppers into loyal customers this season.
There are many ways customer service can positively or negatively impact your business, so today we're going to talk about the customer service statistics you need to know this holiday season and beyond!
Here's what you need to know about how customer service issues can affect your business:
1. Your potential to earn a profit is much less.
Suppose a customer walks into your store and finds a product they decide to purchase. The customer waits in line to check out, but nobody is around to help. After a few minutes, the customer becomes upset and leaves to look for the same product elsewhere.
A little more than half of American shoppers don’t make a purchase when they’re unhappy with their customer service. Additionally, if a customer has a great customer service experience, they might spend 17 percent more, on average, at your business.
2. Customer service can affect everybody.
Older generations care much more about customer service than millennials, but regardless of the age, a significant number of consumers switch retailers if their customer service isn’t great. In fact, more than 70 percent, and as high as 86 percent for GenXers, do exactly that.
3. Unhappy customers will talk about it, even if they don’t complain publicly.
Have you ever chosen to stay away from a specific restaurant because you had one bad experience there? It turns out that many consumers do just the same. Rather than complain about the service, as many as 91 percent of upset customers choose to leave the store and never come back.
However, even if the customer doesn’t complain at the store, we can assume that they will most likely tell a friend. Studies show that if a customer has a bad experience, they’ll give about fifteen people negative feedback on that store.
And that's just in the physical world. If they leave an online review, that negative review will reach many more people since 91 percent of customers read online reviews.
But, it’s not too late.
The wonderful thing about having a small business is the ability to interact with your customers on a more personal level than that of a larger business. Author, Mike Michalowicz, suggests the following:
“Give your customers a chance to get to know you and your staff, and you may be surprised at how loyal they become. Use your small-business status as a badge of honor by taking the time to learn your customers’ names, and their likes and dislikes. When customers say they’re going to get ice cream at “Mike’s” rather than at a big frozen yogurt chain, they’re making a choice to patronize you rather than a large corporation.”
Another suggestion is to implement a loyalty and rewards program for your business. 79 percent of customers always research the best available deals, including deals in these programs. One tip to boost the quality of your customer service and your business’ presence could be to survey each customer to learn what deals they would want from a loyalty program. Doing so can help set you apart from other businesses this holiday season.