It costs six times as much to attract a new customer as to keep an existing one.  One way you keep a customer is by having exceptional customer service. And, when you don’t have it, you must adequately take care of any problems that arise.  Did it take more than one call to resolve a problem? Was a problem ignored? These are surefire ways to turn an unhappy customer into an ex-customer. An unhappy customer will tell 16 people about his or her bad experience and, these days, it’s easier to do that thanks to our presence on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Businesses need to prevent problems in the first place, but this article also argues that businesses need to fundamentally change the way they handle customer service. Each product or service needs to be considered in view of how a customer might present it to his/her social networks. And, when that customer does so, the company should follow along. When a customer uses social media to complain, for example, the company should use the same social site to respond to him. Mass media marketing, therefore, may be a strategy of the past.

With a customer service evaluation program such as Customer Perspectives, you can gain valuable insights into customer behavior and where your team may be falling short, before the problems become fodder for the social media echo chamber.