A recent study across 6 Asian Pacific countries by Verint Systems Inc. found that 41% of customers will share positive customer service experiences on social media, as compared to only 32% who prefer to share negative ones. See the Wall Street Journal Article.
With the very loud voice that customers now have, and the great number of channels to express it, this is good news indeed for organizations who focus on delivering outstanding customer experiences.
The numbers in the study represent a departure from most studies that have been done in the past. The Verint study, for example, indentifies that 23% of customers (including commercial consumers) value price over service. While it still indicates that customer service is far and away the most dominant driver in organizational success, it is a departure from the numbers in previous studies that used to hover around 15%. One possible explanation is geography. The Verint survey was focused on the Asia-Pacific region, where most of the other studies were predominently in the West.
The one thing that continues to surprise is that, as always, the telecom segment led the pack with two-thirds of customers having had poor experiences. With the tremendously high level of dollars at stake in this industry, you would think that at least one of the players would step up to own the customer service space. Every piece of research that’s out there continues to tell us that’s where organizations should be. Instead, however, they all still continue to focus their attention on pricing and marketing gimmicks.
Other industry segments that didn’t fare so well in the customer satisfaction department were retail, financial services and retail. I found it quite surprising to find hotel and travel on the list as well. If there is one segment that, overall, understands how critical customer experience is, it’s them.
