A recent study* over a 3 year period reported defection statistics of:

Why did they leave? Customers left because of poor customer service.

We have been watching these statistics like this for several years.

Because of poor customer service Mobius Management’s survey about two years ago reported that:

While there may be some improvement in the banking industry, credit card and telecom haven’t changed much. And I bet you’re included (as am I) in at least one of these percentages.

What is the cost of defection for your company? Do you know the cost of a bad call experience? Do you know what percentage of your callers have a bad experience? And then do you know the dollar amount attached to it? If you don’t, I suggest you find out. Even if you are guesstimating, this will give you an idea. I think you’ll be surprised, perhaps even amazed at your cost.

Here’s an example where we’ll use a center that has:

200 agents
100 calls per day per agent
5% bad customer experiences
$50 customer revenue per sale

100 calls per day per agent x 5% percentage of bad call experiences = 5 bad calls per agent

5 bad calls per agent x 200 agents = 1000 bad experiences per day

240 days yr (20 days x 12) x 1000 bad experiences per day = 240,000 annually (bad experiences)

$50 customer revenue per sale x 240,000 annually (bad experiences) = $12,000,000 million in lost revenue!


Many companies I’m familiar with have a much higher revenue per sale. I’m only using $50 here as an arbitrary example.

Plug in your own numbers and see what your true bottom line is in lost revenue.

The good news is that with just 1% improvement you can see recovered revenue:

240,000 bad call experiences annually x 1% improvement = 2,400 additional customers

2,400 additional customers x $50 customer revenue per sale = $120,000 recovered revenue

What’s your fastest path to recovery? What’s a proven way to improve your customer service?

Invest in your people. Train them, re-train them, and provide refresher courses that are robust in communication skills. But not just any kind of training. Be sure it’s customized to your applications, your issues, and your customers so that you are hitting the nail on the head. It should be robust, highly interactive, with role playing of scenarios provided by your people, not off the shelf hit or miss topics.

An article I read recently put soft skills at 20% of training programs. While 20% is certainly better than nothing it’s not nearly enough.

Why? Because I believe that it’s in the space of communication that relationships are formed, trust is established, and issues, complaints, problems are solved. Otherwise we could all use self service. It’s when there is something more complex or complicated that we need to speak to a human. That human need the tools and techniques to engage and delight that customer---otherwise they’re gone to your competition.

Hardware and software support people, they don’t replace them! People make the difference.

About the Author
Rosanne D'Ausilio, Ph.D., industrial psychologist, President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., specializes in human performance management for contact centers, providing needs analyses, instructional design, and customized, live, world class customer service skills trainings.

Known as 'the practical champion of the human, she authors the best-sellers, Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub, 4th edition, Customer Service and The Human Experience and Lay Your Cards on the Table: 52 Ways to Stack You Personal Deck, and hot off the press How to Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch: 101 Insider Tips as well as her popular ‘tips’ newsletter on How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch! available at http://www.HumanTechTips.com. Reach her at Rosanne@human-technologies.com.