Want to see a startling statistic? No? Well, shut your eyes.

The average business hears from 4% of dissatisfied customers. Many businesses make the mistake in thinking that if they don’t hear from customers, those customers had a positive experience.

WRONG.

Few people are going to take the time to tell you what you did wrong. They have their own problems to take care of, and solving yours isn’t one of them.

The solution?

Constantly strive to improve your service, even if you aren’t being flooded with complaints. Don’t let the problem get to that point. Identify it in its infant stage so it can be more readily taken care of. Want real feedback? Create an incentive for them to sacrifice their valuable time.

Next fact: it’s up to 7 times less expensive to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones.

Granted, in order to grow your business you need to acquire new customers. We accept that fact. However, you can’t acquire new ones at the expense of losing your old ones.

In other words, customer acquisition can’t happen without customer retention. And considering that 86% of consumers will quit doing business with you after a bad customer experience, you could say that this fact goes hand in hand with fact #1 above.

And finally, speed kills. (No, we’re not using some urban slang phrase.) We mean to say that the “help ‘em fast” attitude isn’t necessarily in your best interests. Taking the necessary time to truly understand your customers’ problems and skillfully solving it will go a lot further than getting them out the door as soon as possible.

And here’s one bonus fact to startle the apathy right out of you: 80% of companies claim they have superior customer service. 8% of customers think these same companies deliver said superior service. Like we said above, most companies are in denial: “Who? Us? Bad service? Impossible. My employees are the best.”

The lesson? Evaluate your service constantly and look for successes and shortcomings. Find different metrics that give you some real feedback on how your company is doing.

And remember, don’t assume that just because you aren’t hearing any complaints that things are peachy—you could be oh so wrong. Don’t wait to find out.

Data via: Helpscout.net