Customer service can generate your best PR….or your worst. Businesses beware.
There are now so many ways for customers to share their experiences – through social media, blogs, websites and word of mouth - that bad customer service rants about your company are now only a click away from being broadcast to the world. There are even websites dedicated to outing those businesses providing bad experiences, such as thevent.co.nz and haveyoursay.co.nz.
A quick search online provides statistics that show that up to 70% of people will tell friends and family about negative experiences; nearly three times as many will relay bad experiences over good.
The art of public relations is to encourage trusted people to experience your brand or business in a positive manner and to then share their experience with others.
Word of mouth is still one of the most important PR and communications tools you can use. American research shows that 93% of customers identify word of mouth as the best, most reliable source about ideas and information on products and services; 67% of purchases are primarily influenced by word of mouth; a 2% reduction in negative word of mouth can generate 1% of business growth (London School of Economics).
In the last week, we have personally experienced great customer service - thanks Briscoes - and we shared this with our networks through twitter, facebook and simply by talking to friends and family – great free PR for Briscoes.
Unfortunately, we were also forced to deal with another business whose customer service is slowly but surely driving us totally insane – and we’re now sharing that negative experience with our networks as well.
Bond and Bond seem to have decided that their customer is best served with silence.
Businesses, listen up. Even if things are not going quite to plan, customers want to know. They do not have time to ring you five times to get the right person, sit on hold listening to terrible music or drive out to your store three times to see if goods have finally arrived.
Good customer service is all about good communication and providing a solution. Talk to your customers, provide them with a good experience and watch as your customer base grows.
And if that isn’t enough and your business really does offer a great customer service experience that you want to share, call the team at Ellis and Co and we’ll put together a PR campaign for you that will really get people talking.
Contact jackie@ellisandco.co.nz or call us on 09 360 8500.