Customer Service In A Bad Economy

October 22, 2009

Interview with Terry Vavra, author of the book Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Businessand Proven Tactics That Really Work

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Mike Carruthers:
Customer service, like so many other things, has taken a real hit because of the bad economy. Some interesting research on the Internet shows that…

Terry Vavra:
The typical U.S. company today probably has 50 to 100 times more negative word of mouth posted about it than positive.

Customer Service expert Terry Vavra, author of the book Loyalty Myths says in tough times businesses need to really focus and cater to profitable customers. And one often-overlooked way is to respond to compliments as well as complaints.

There is an implied opportunity in a compliment ever so much as there is a complaint. It’s like seeing someone on the street and saying, “Gee that’s a great dog you got there.” And the person looks at you and just walks right by.

But businesses are so focused on addressing complaints that they ignore compliments.

And so that means that American businesses just don’t seize the opportunity to make of a compliment a very positive experience - then happy customers have as much of a story to tell as unhappy customers.

And Terry has some advice for customers as well.

Customers have to recognize that they have tremendous power. And I don’t mean to say that all customers need to turn themselves into activists. But customers should never settle.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.