“Too many of these companies fail to realize the dire long-term repercussions of not making the proper investments in customer service, including missing out on millions of dollars in business opportunities,” said Brett Anderson, managing director for Customer Relationship Management in Accenture’s Communications & High Tech Practice. “This is a wake-up call that customer service should no longer be relegated to a mere instrument for extracting costs out of the business. Instead, this service should be a powerful and crucial investment target for accelerating full-throttle toward delivering high performance.”
The research found that more than three-quarters (81 percent) of customers who rated their service satisfaction as “below average” said they will purchase from a different supplier the next time. Many companies perceive themselves to be providing much better service than their customers say they are receiving. Although three-quarters (75 percent) of executives said their companies’ provide “above average” customer care, more than half (58 percent) of consumers rated their satisfaction with customer service as average or below average.
“With so many technology products on a natural path to commoditization, technology companies need to use customer service to differentiate themselves from competitors,” Anderson said.
When consumers rate their service satisfaction as merely “average,” the likelihood of their buying again from that same company falls by almost half from 51 percent to 27 percent. Moreover, because nearly half (48 percent) of consumers surveyed said they share their negative customer-service experiences with friends and family, technology companies risk losing many more customers than just those at the receiving end of poor customer service.
“Sharing negative customer-service experiences, both via word of mouth and particularly through the Internet, has become a powerful weapon in the hands of consumers to damage companies that provide mediocre or bad customer service,” Anderson said. “Accenture has never seen a closer correlation between customer service and consumer loyalty, or the influence that a single customer’s opinion can have on the masses.”
Accenture’s research also exposed several additional areas of poor customer service and consumer dissatisfaction. Among the findings:
* More than four in 10 customers surveyed (42 percent) said they had to access customer-service channels multiple times to resolve their problems.
* More than six in 10 customers surveyed (61 percent) said they believe that technology has not improved customer service.
* The vast majority of consumers—78 percent—said the service they receive is “at or below” the level competitors offer.
* Companies are wasting millions of dollars on customer-service initiatives that customers don’t view as important, particularly self-service capabilities.
