Client Service May be Extremely Profitable
I'm borrowing this post, lock, stock & barrel, with a few of my own comments, from Gerry Riskin's blog post by the same name. Here's a small excerpt:
"The story is that a portfolio comprised of “companies at the top 20% of the the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)... greatly outperformed the stock market, generating a 40% return."
Lawyers being what they are, I suppose they needed some emperical "proof" to validate that claim. For what it's worth, this philosophy major was apparently more gullible. Busted logic or not, here's my reasoning: Happy customers are likelier to buy again. And be less concerned about price. And tell their friends to buy from you, too. It's the same idea behind a blog: let others do your marketing for you.
Conversely, companies that have lousy customer service are far likelier to irretrievably lose customers. The customers they do keep will view price as the driver, which means lower profits. And I'm not likely to brag about you. If you're a monopoly, and I have to do business with you, I still won't buy all that I could. Right now I could really use my own voice mail box, but I'm scared stiff to call Qwest and make a change. They're an absolute nightmare, and everything they touch turns to mold.
