Did you know that you can measure a company’s value by its customer service?
Researchers discovered that regardless if your customer service is outsourced either on shore or off shore this affects the net worth of your business. If your customer service satisfaction as determined through American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) created by National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan declines so does your company’s value.
This information was presented to determine the impact of off shore outsourcing of customer service. The researchers reviewed the outsourcing actions of 150 North American companies including business units. All companies that outsourced their customer service registered a decline in the ACSI scores. What is interesting the declines stayed the same regardless if the customer service was outsourced domestically or overseas.
The historical data suggests that the ACSI scores and the companies’ share prices tend to move in the same direction. Within this research, the range of that drop averaged between 1% to 5% based upon the industry for each respective business.
When businesses outsource customer service, they are widening the gap between the business and the customer. Today’s customers are pretty savvy. They are not shy at all about asking the location of the customer service center especially when the customer service representative does not speak fluent English.
This research only strengthens previous customer service data that building customer loyalty is critical to organizational success. With the average business losing 10% of its customers annually and acquiring new customers costs 5 to 6 times more than keeping existing ones, businesses must create exceptional customer service action plans that will develop customer loyalty from additional purchases to making those precious referrals.
Customer Service Coaching Tip: Survey your customers and ask them the level of your customer service satisfaction based upon their expectations (not yours)? Then also ask them if they would refer your business to someone else? Finally, asked them the last time that they referred someone to your business. These 3 questions will help you build an action plan to secure an exceptional high performance culture that will improve your bottom line results.
Is your business facing inconsistent or insufficient cash flow, lacklustre sales to poor productivity? Then do you have an action plan or are you Captain Wing It flying by the seat of your pants?
About the Author
Leanne Hoagland-Smith coaches small businesses to large organizations and high school students to entrepreneurs to double performance by closing the gap between today’s outcomes and tomorrow’s goals.
