Jul 21 2008
Customer Satisfaction = Customer Retention
Research firm Aberdeen Group, sponsored by Mindshare Technologies, titled “Customer Feedback Management”investigates how leading companies use customer feedback to improve services and customer retention.
A few of the significant findings developed from the research include:
- Best-in-Class companies are more than 8 times more likely than Laggards to increase customer satisfaction.
- Best-in-Class companies are more than 26 times more likely than Laggards to increase customer retention.
- Best-in-Class companies are nearly 3 times as likely as Laggards tocommunicate with customers how their complaints and suggestions have been or will be acted upon.
The report highlights the importance of using customer feedback in an age where customers can sound off, complain, praise, and make contact with a company by turning on their home computer.
The hospitality industry in general has a lot to think about with this report, as 3rd party recomendations and internet opinion sites are major source of incoming clients, or the loss of clients.
The key thing that you mention is “major source of incoming clients, or the loss of clients.” If your brand is out there all over the web and let’s look at the Hotel industry on sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp.com and others; why not give your current/potential customers a place to voice their concerns, ideas and innovations?
Representing a site like SuggestionBox.com we hear the concerns of both the company side and not airing all their issues in the public’s eye and the customers who just want to be listened to. It’s a slower process for a lot of larger Fortune 500 companies who are tiptoeing into a Web 2.0 world and trying to figure out the best of both worlds, so they can listen and respond in an efficient manner.