Big QAQnA kudos to Maria Palma of Customers Are Always for pointing us to a great article by Brett Anderson at DestinationCRM. Brett cites recent research by Accenture that shows a huge disconnect between what customers want from tech companies’ customer service and what technology company executives believe (or don’t believe) their customers want.
Among the research findings Brett cited in his post:
- Consumers will no longer tolerate average customer service from technology companies — three-fourths will leave those companies;
- consumers have lower perceptions of the services they receive than technology executives perceive they provide;
- consumers’ desires don’t match these executives’ customer service investment priorities;
- consumers are dissatisfied and frustrated with most self-service technologies; and
- many
companies are focused on winning the sale from a customer (thereby
winning the battle), but don’t stay focused on keeping that customer
happy after the sale (thereby losing the war).
I’ve said, for a long time, that executives need to stop trusting their guts and start listening to their customers. Technology, by its very nature, is ever-changing. I can understand how tech executives gain a "make a killing today because we might not be here tomorrow" mentality. But those companies willing to invest in listening to their customers and invest in satisfying actual customer expectations will be much more profitable in the long-run.
Great content! But I must confess the graphic in this particular post could have been a post all by itself. I loved it! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the kudos!! I think that executives often get caught up in their little comfort bubbles that they forget what’s going on! Imagine what would happen if they started paying more attention to the “blogosphere” – especially customer service blogs 😉
Imagine that! What a wonderful world it would be 🙂 Thanks, Maria!
Outside Opinions Matter
A week or so ago there was a great post by Tom at QAQNA about the importance of outside opinions in customer service. It was a follow up to a post that Maria from CustomersAreAlways had made a few days earlier.
The article that both Tom and Maria talk …