How to make a dissatisfied customer your strongest ally

April 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Customer service is one of the most powerful customer acquisition tools available to brands. It therefore makes patently good sense that any brand communication strategy should include customer service as a legitimate platform for growth.

I'd like to share a personal experience that illustrates how important it is for a brand to "walk its talk". I recently had one of the most horrific customer service experiences of my life while trying to fly SAA. The company states on their website that they strive "to inspire with African hospitality". However, six hours of apathy proved otherwise. Even after acknowledging their mistake, they still refused the simple decency of calling me back to confirm the correction and instead had me spend almost three hours of my own airtime on hold trying to get an answer. It felt as though they had treated me like dirt and that feeling has remained every time I see their advertising. I might still fly with them if it suits me, but the negative experience means that I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

Now contrast this with South West Airlines from the USA. They acknowledge that within their industry mistakes will happen, and often. They have strategically employed people in positions where their sole responsibility is to phone people and apologise for mistakes and mishaps. What they found was that people who experienced an apology were actually happier, and consequently more satisfied (14 points higher in feedback surveys), than customers who did not experience anything negative at all. South African Airways could learn from this. Without changing their customer service culture they are losing a golden opportunity to build their brand. Advertising alone doesn't suffice.

As brand custodians we never experience what customers do. The focus of the marketing team is also always on getting new people into stores or to try out a product, with almost no focus on the point of interaction with the product or service itself. So 98% of our effort and expense goes towards making people aware of us and wanting to try us, while only 2% goes towards the most memorable moment the consumer will ever have with the brand. Logically, it does not make sense. Why do we spend millions on advertising and building expectations, then disappoint our customers by not following through?

In a recent survey it was found that 80% of CEOs believed that their brand provided a superior customer experience, while only 8% of their customers agreed!

Let me further highlight just how damaging bad customer service can be. It has been proven that, on average, for every one unhappy customer that tells you that they are unhappy, there are six others who don't tell you (the silent killers). However, every single one of those seven unhappy customers will each tell nine of their friends, family members or work colleagues. That's 63 people who have heard of your bad customer service. A total of 25% of those 63 individuals will then act on what they hear, meaning that a total of 16 customers may never buy from you again. If you now want to calculate the potential cost of sales for bad customer service, take your average sales value over a year, multiply it by 16 lost customers, then multiply that by the number of customer complaints you receive. That gives you an estimate of your potential annual loss of income as a result of bad customer service.

Now all companies and brands will have an accepted norm regarding customer complaints. Nobody is perfect. Somewhere along the line we are bound to mess up. But imagine if you were to reduce the amount of customer complaints by apologising directly. By making an effort to appease disgruntled customers. You then turn declining customer equity around and automatic growth results. People don't want to talk about bad things for the sake of bad things. People want to talk about things that are surprising or remarkable. Almost 70% of conversations are positive, while less than 10% are negative - showing that if we create positive experiences, our customers will talk. Brands in South Africa unfortunately rarely provide such positive reasons.

In a comparative study undertaken by Accenture in 2007 - including countries in North and South America, Europe and Australasia - South Africa ranked last in terms of Customer Service. Accenture also found that the public's view was that service levels were worsening and that it was a cause for concern. Now while this is shocking, it should also excite you. Here's an unparalleled opportunity to stand out, to exceed expectation and to generate more sales.

If we were competing on customer service with Disney World, we would have to climb to the moon to impress our customers. However, because the general standard in South Africa is so low, it is so much easier for us to blow people away. We have found with our clients that if you do the basics right, such as greet a customer, make eye contact, smile, be knowledgeable about the brand and then thank them for their business - customers will phone friends they have not seen for twenty years just to share the remarkable news!

Finally, I want to share an ethos with you from a company called Zappos that does not advertise at all, but rather believes that if they impress their customers, their customers will recommend them to their friends. Their annual turnover in dollars has eight zeros - so it's working. When you ask anyone who works there what they do, they say that they are "a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes".

The focus should always be the customer - because based on what they tell their peers, they can make or break your brand's future. Everything starts or ends with the service you provide for your customers. The lesson is clear: Don't spend millions advertising, only to disappoint your customer when lack of customer service empathy flies in the face of your projected brand image. Turn the customer interface into a sales tool. Listen to your customer. They are the reason for your being in business. Apologise, when necessary. Appease. Then watch Word of Mouth take your brand equity to new heights.