Do you make it comfortable for customers to give you Feedback?

Getting customer feedback is obviously an important part of improving customer service. Yet, as anyone familiar with customer service statistics knows, only a small percentage of unhappy customers say anything about the unsatisfactory service they receive. Why?

Think of your own experiences with poor service. People don’t because it’s not worth the hassle.

Think of how many instances of indifferent or surly service you’ve endured, but as you looked at the service person in front of you, you could tell any attempts at saying anything would simply result in more of the same. Instead of complaining, you leave, either never to come back or hoping that a convenient alternative will soon materialize.

But… when DO you say something? Unless you love conflict, it’s only when you’ve reached a certain threshold. If you’re like most of us, you don’t bother to speak up until you are so fed up, you don’t care what response you get. When your Anger Quotient moves above your Conflict Aversion Threshold, you’re ready to mix it up with even the most truculent clerk. Once you cross your own individual Conflict Aversion Threshold, you say something.

For businesses in the customer business, that’s a little late.

Here’s why. All the little Moments of Truth that annoy customers that they never tell you about…they make a HUGE difference in customer loyalty and therefore, profitability. Research by Frederick Reicheld, published in The Loyalty Effect, revealed the following:

1. 15% to 40% of satisfied (yes, that’s “satisfied” not “dissatisfied”) customers defect each year.

2. Satisfied customers are 6 times more likely to defect than totally satisfied customers.

3. A 2% increase in customer retention is like a 10% reduction in operating costs.

4. A 5% reduction in customer defection results in profit increases from 30% to 85%, depending on the industry.

5. It costs 5 to 7 times more to find new customers than retain customers.

Thus, the profitability difference between customers who feel you’re OK and those who think you’re great is massive. Therefore, you want to ferret out those little things that keep you from being getting a “5 out of 5” – an “I’m totally satisfied” response – from your customers.

The only way you can do that is to make it comfortable for your customers to give you honest feedback. You need to lower the Conflict Aversion Threshold. In other words, by signaling to your customers that they can give you feedback without conflict or hassle, you let them know there’s no down side to giving negative feedback. They don’t have to engage in the Customer Calculus of comparing the Hassle and Discomfort Factor against the Outrage Factor … the greater determining whether they speak up or stalk off.

Without needing the negative Moment of Truth to be egregious enough to offset the Hassle and Discomfort Factor, customers will give you feedback about service faux pas that have been flying under your service radar… and quite likely costing you customers.

In the next installment, I’ll give you two examples of establishments who’ve done a great job at lowering that threshold.

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