Business owners know that customer service is something that has to be prioritised. Making sure the customer is always happy isn’t just a cute saying; it’s vital to the company’s success. It’s so important that even one bad customer experience is enough to cause waves, and in extreme cases, even ruin a business. That may sound dramatic, but it’s true.
To help illustrate that point, let’s review some of the ways that a bad customer experience can affect a business, no matter the industry or size of the company.
Contents
- 1 You Only Get One Chance to Make a First Impression
- 2 The Internet Has Made It Easy to Share Negative Experiences Quickly
- 3 Don’t Expect Customers to Recommend Your Products or Services to Their Network
- 4 It’s Much Cheaper to Retain Loyal Customers Than to Find New Ones
- 5 Businesses Are Always Trying to Build Brand Reputation and Negative Reviews Don’t Help
- 6 Poor Company Reviews Can Make Talent Recruitment Difficult
- 7 One Bad Customer Review Is Much More Than an Inconvenience
You Only Get One Chance to Make a First Impression
You’re probably familiar with the saying that you only get one chance to make a first impression, and that also applies to customer service. If a customer has a bad customer experience in their first encounter dealing with a company, they will automatically assume this is a sign of what’s to come. The odds of them being a customer ever again are slim to none, especially since they have no other experience to measure it against.
From a company’s standpoint, you never know if the customer you’re dealing with is a new or returning one. The best approach is to treat each encounter like a new customer you are trying to convert into a loyal one.
The internet is wonderful for many reasons—it can make people more productive, give companies a wide reach, speed up research, spread news, and allow us to communicate with people anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, sometimes the internet can also ruin businesses.
Anyone with access to the internet can leave a negative review on a company’s website, review platform, or even just Google. If this review goes viral, the situation can spiral out of control quickly. This is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a business to come back from, and its reputation can quickly be ruined. That is why companies—like those that allow you to claim no wagering bonuses from casinos.com—actively work to ensure every customer has a positive experience.
It’s a whole lot easier to prevent negative reviews from popping up online than dealing with them once they are out in the wild for the public to feast on.
Don’t Expect Customers to Recommend Your Products or Services to Their Network
Even if the product or service that a customer purchases was good and met expectations, if anything about their experience was negative, that’s the outcome they will emphasize. When talking with friends, family, and even coworkers, they will likely focus on the poor customer service they experienced.
Considering that so many businesses rely on word of mouth to build brand awareness, this would be a massive missed opportunity.
It’s Much Cheaper to Retain Loyal Customers Than to Find New Ones
For the non-business owners out there, you’ve probably never thought about what costs more—finding new customers or retaining loyal customers. The fact is that finding new customers is much more expensive, so if you’re constantly losing customers due to bad experiences, your marketing budget will need to be pretty high. The business will be in a constant state of having to look for new customers.
There is a customer acquisition cost formula that business owners can use to shed light on just how pricey it is to find new customers. Retaining customers and ensuring they make repeat purchases is much cheaper, easier, and more effective overall.
Some of the ways a business can create customer loyalty include:
- Listening to customer feedback and asking questions.
- Following up with customers and encouraging them to make another purchase.
- Making sure you are there to answer questions and be a valuable resource.
- Always showing appreciation to customers.
- Providing loyal customers with a value incentive such as a rewards program, exclusive discounts, or first access.
Businesses Are Always Trying to Build Brand Reputation and Negative Reviews Don’t Help
Building brand recognition is something that every company must do. It’s much harder at the beginning, but it’s still something that requires regular attention. If the business expands into additional markets (domestic and international), adds new product lines or different services, and so forth, rebranding may be necessary.
One thing that can throw branding, recognition, trust, and authority out the window is negative customer reviews. These will overtake any efforts you make and drown out all the good. Let’s face it, negative reviews tend to get a lot more attention than positive ones.
Poor Company Reviews Can Make Talent Recruitment Difficult
There’s also another cost to businesses that isn’t always discussed. If your company starts to develop a negative reputation, it can affect recruitment and talent retention. People tend to be wary of working for a company with bad reviews. They don’t want to be part of a business that doesn’t treat customers well out of fear it treats the employees the same.
The competition to find top talent is fierce. You may be eyeing talent that other companies also have an interest in. Who do you think the potential employee will pick? A company with a great reputation and happy customers, or one that gets bad customer reviews?
One Bad Customer Review Is Much More Than an Inconvenience
Passing off a bad customer review as an outlier or a blip is one of the biggest mistakes a business can make. Every review and customer experience needs to be taken seriously and treated equally. The goal should always be to get positive glowing reviews so that they reflect positively on the company and increase the odds of that customer returning. The reasons mentioned here show you just how easily a bad review can ruin a business.
