The volatility of this past year has left many uncertain as to how the new year may or may not play out. Things, it seems, may be moving quickly and just may be headed in unexpected directions. This also holds true for small businesses. What will it be like? What are the consumers thinking? In some recently data from Forbes, there seems as if there may be more than a few surprises in store for business. The following is taken directly from that gathered research:
- For this report, we conducted an online survey of over 1,000 consumers between the ages of 18 and 65 in the
United States. The results were weighted to reflect the demographics in terms of age, gender, geography and
location, according to the U.S. census. - We asked respondents about their willingness to switch brands or companies for better customer service. Only 3.8% said they were unwilling—meaning that 96.2% of customers are willing on some level to switch if they think they’ll have a better experience elsewhere. Over half of respondents (60.6%) said that they would be either extremely willing or very willing to switch. Recent research shows that customers will make this switch after just one bad experience.
- We asked customers if they are willing to pay more in exchange for a convenient experience. Almost 70% would pay more for convenience in general. When we specifically mentioned delivery, that number shot up to just over 90%.
- We asked customers what channels of communication they prefer to use when contacting a company for support. Is it a surprise that the telephone came in as the number one channel customers prefer to use? It
beat out email with a substantial 16.3% lead. Self-service came in at number three, showing that customers would rather help themselves than be forced to interact with channels such as social media, brand apps and chatbots. - We asked respondents whether or not they’d received poor customer service over the past 12 months. If they indicated that they had, we asked them what influenced their poor experience. Nearly half (48.5%) of respondents said that their poor experience was due to rudeness and/or apathy, and 42.1% said it was because they were not treated like a valued customer.
– Written by Kevin Sawyer
