Cows, Magnets & Icebergs

Cows will face directly North or South while eating. Utilizing satellite images pulled from Google Earth, a team of researchers found that cows always stood facing the magnetic poles within the Earth while eating or resting. Scientists have no idea why. And while I am on the subject of North and South, scientists understand how magnets work to a degree, but what they don’t understand is this: WHY do natural magnets ALWAYS have a North and South Pole? Further, no matter how many times you cut a magnet in half you will always get a magnet that has a North and South Pole. Simply put, scientists have no idea why natural magnets have a North and South Pole. None!

Okay, we don’t know why cows and magnets do what they do, but we do know some of the reasons why customers react in certain ways … yet many companies seem to ignore these easily accessible facts. If you knew that 78% of customers bail on a transaction because of poor customer service would you change the way you are doing business? If you knew a typical business hears from only 4% of its dissatisfied customers, would that concern you? Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos once stated: “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.”

• 3 in 5 Americans (59%) would try a new brand or company for a better service experience.
• 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with you again.
• 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience.
• 67% of customers hang up the phone out of frustration because they could not talk to a real person.
• Over 1 million people view tweets about customer service every week. Roughly 80% of those tweets are negative.

If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times … “We're sorry, but we're experiencing unusually heavy call volumes. You can hold or try back at another time.” What that says to me is … we’re too cheap to hire enough people to service our customers properly. Or, how about this statement: “Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold.” If my call was really important to you, you would not make me hold. These two statements are enormous opportunities for your competitors. Consumers are now being given more and more alternatives of companies they can do business with and they are actively looking for companies who will TREAT THEM BETTER.

One way to help make sure your career or company is never sunk is follow the advice of General George Patton, former commander of the 7th Army during World War II, who once said; “ Always do more than is required of you.”