Are you actively listening to your customers?

In this interesting article from The Huffington Post, the White House Office of Consumer Affairs has reported:

• 78 percent of consumers have ended a transaction due to bad service.
• Only 4 percent of dissatisfied customers actually speak up.
• Loyal customers are worth up to ten times as much as their first purchase.
• The probability of selling to a new customer is 5-20 percent, while selling to an existing customer is 60-70 percent.
• It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for a single bad experience.
• Negative interactions with a business are spread to twice as many people as positive ones.
• It costs over six times more to get new customers than it does to keep one current one.
• For every customer who complains, 26 others don’t speak up.

We know that one way to avoid customer service snafus is to use a mystery shopping firm to identify areas where your business might be lacking. Customers today have very little loyalty to a brand or company.  Determining all the ways you can “listen” and learn from the customer experience will help you retain customers, which is far easier than gaining new ones or luring back disgruntled ones.