Churn check: 5 data-backed reasons your customers are leaving

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Your business now competes in the Age of the Customer, in which the ability to create positive experiences can make or break a brand.

In 2016, a NewVoiceMedia study found that by failing to meet customer expectations, businesses lost $62 billion per year. Two years later, our follow-up research reveals that this total has now increased to $75 billion.

While it’s often easy to believe that sky-high customer expectations are impossible to meet, 66 percent of the consumers we surveyed said they would be more loyal to a company that provided good service, and 65 percent would spend more money. To help you provide a better experience, and prevent your customers from leaving, here are five data-backed reasons that cause shoppers to switch.

You’re not connecting emotionally with customers
Almost nine out of 10 (86 percent) customers would be more likely to continue shopping with a company if they felt like they made a positive emotional connection with the brand or a customer service agent. Yet despite these make-or-break consequences, customers felt like they made an emotional connection with less than a third (30 percent) of companies they had shopped with over the last year. To look at it another way, seven out of every 10 customers left feeling emotionally unsatisfied after their shopping experience.

You’re failing to alleviate key customer pain points
Not being connected to a highly knowledgeable agent, rude staff and hours spent on hold are causing a crisis in customer service confidence. As result, the number of consumers who left a business due to inadequate service in the last two years has increased significantly, from 49 to 67 percent.

By failing to alleviate key pain points, businesses are mishandling the moments that matter most in their customer experience. Left unattended, these individual factors will intensify the negative experiences that today’s consumers are no longer able to tolerate. And with customer expectations at an all-time low, organizations offering superior service have the perfect opportunity to stand out from their competitors.

You’re making it too hard for customers to solve their problems
Even with an increasing number of technologies such as self-service and web chat, nearly one third (32 percent) of customers believe businesses do not offer an effective way to solve their problems. Before walking out on the offending businesses, these disgruntled customers are multiplying the damage by turning to open platforms to get their problems solved.

Online reviews and complaints on social media carry the weight of longevity. There for all to see, not adequately addressing these negative conversations can damage your reputation and cause your company even greater losses over time. Making it easy to solve issues is therefore crucial to reducing the number of customers who feel inclined to name and shame your product or service online.

Your customer service offering lacks the human touch
Over half (56 percent) of customers believe a phone call offers the quickest way to get a problem resolved; in comparison, webchat was chosen by just 7 percent. When seeking creative solutions to complex service problems, most customers still seek out other humans.

If they get stuck, can’t find the information they need on your website, or require help with a purchase decision, your customers will prefer the emotional intelligence only a person can offer. When customers become frustrated or confused, organizations deploying a suite of service options should ensure there is always an option to reach a live agent.

You’re not delivering a consistent experience throughout the customer journey
Because customers want to move seamlessly from one channel to the next and pick up each conversation from where they left off, keeping track of multi-channel conversations is vital. For this reason, 43 percent of customers chose being able to contact a company through any channel as the top driver for feeling emotionally connected to a brand. Delivering on these expectations requires an omni-channel solution that offers complete visibility of customer interactions across every touchpoint.

Solving the core of these issues lies in the contact center
Contact centers weighed down with long hold times, inaccessible agents, endless IVR trees and poor omni-channel capabilities destroy customer satisfaction. Where agents are stretched thin, using multichannel operating systems that offer little insight into the overall customer journey, cloud customer contact center solutions can help stop serial switchers and protect your bottom line.

When tightly integrated with your CRM, a cloud contact center solution can enable your business to monitor customer interactions across all channels and touchpoints. Your agents will have access to a wide range of caller data, allowing them to personalize each interaction and solve the caller’s issue at the same time as creating a positive emotional experience.

To learn more about optimizing your contact center to build deeper customer relationships, download the free whitepaper, Serial Switchers Swayed By Sentiment.

John Eng
Based in San Francisco, John leads NewVoiceMedia’s global marketing and product marketing organizations and strengthen its brand momentum as provider of leading cloud solutions for sales and service teams. John has been passionate about growing B2B software and SaaS companies for over 20 years, having led marketing for large multinational firms including LinkedIn, Parallels and Microsoft. Most recently, he served as CMO at Tradeshift and then at Remix. He has lived and worked in France, China and Singapore as well as the US.

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