3C Contact Services (www.3CContactServices.com), North America’s premier cost-effective provider of contact center solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, is weighing in on new survey results which suggest that many Canadians are hard to win back once they’ve experienced poor customer service.
According to a new survey from Accenture, 68% of Canadians would not make a purchase again from a business that they’ve left due to poor customer service. In addition, in the last year, nearly half of Canadians have switched to a competing business due to a bad experience. (Source: Herhalt, C., “Survey dubs Canadians ‘silent switchers,’ unlikely to complain about bad customer service,” CP24.com, May 10, 2016; http://www.cp24.com/news/survey-dubs-canadians-silent-switchers-unlikely-to-complain-about-bad-customer-service-1.2895767.)
“Customer service is vitally important for business success in Canada,” says Steven Facey, general manager at 3C Contact Services. “Customer service has a huge impact on revenue and profit. These new results show that once a customer is lost, they will likely never come back.”
The survey also found that Canadians are “silent switchers,” meaning they rarely make complaints before switching to another business. While less than one-fifth of Canadians have posted negative comments online in the past year, 49% have taken their business to competitors.
“Just because a business is not getting complaints doesn’t mean that their customers are satisfied,” Facey explains. “As these results show, most customers will never call a company or leave a negative review online. The negative feedback that is received is just the tip of the iceberg.”
While other countries, such as the U.S. and Brazil, have higher rates of people switching to competing businesses after poor service, Canadians are more unlikely to return to a business once they have left. The survey concludes that Canadians are less forgiving.
“There’s not much room for error when it comes to customer service,” Facey adds. “One bad experience can be all it takes to lose a customer for good. Businesses need to be focusing on their service, particularly if they’re new or growing.”
Some good news for business owners is that 80% of Canadians who switched to competitors said that they would have stayed if the business offered to improve their services. The report also found that Canadians preferred speaking with customer service agents, as opposed to automated voice answering systems.
“What this means is that when a business speaks directly with customers, those customer are less likely to leave,” Facey concludes. “Once they leave, they’re lost for good, but if a business can get their feedback and offer to make the right improvements, then there’s a good chance of retaining them. Something as simple as using an outbound call center could save up to 80% of lost customers.”
3C Contact Services provides its partners’ agents with the necessary customer service skills needed to resolve a number of situations.
