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Marketing, customer satisfaction and loyalty
Satisfied customers will follow you everywhere

Complaint handling in numbers : are customers really satisfied ?

Over the years I’ve collected a series of statistics about complaint handling. I call them “the metrics of dissatisfaction”. These figures reveal that despite 30 years of research in the field, hundreds of papers and books published and tons of recommendations, companies are still not getting it. Complaint are still not being handled well and customers are more dissatisfied than ever.

The dangers of dissatisfaction

These figures should be enough to convince you that complaint handling is important, yet completely underestimated by firms.

Dissatisfied customers keep silent with the firm …

… but not with other potential customers (word-of-mouth effect)

Yet, handling complaints well pays in terms of loyalty

  • 54%-70% of customers who register a complaint will do business again with the organization if the complaint is resolved; 95% if the customer feels that the complaint was resolved quickly
  • +21% : the loyalty increase if complainants are satisfied with the answer received (RAGE 2013)
  • -12% : the loyalty decrease if complainants are dissatisfied with the answer received (RAGE 2013)

And loyalty pays in terms of profits

  • 177% : the increase in profits due to good complaint handling (Davidow 2015)
  • 15%-400% : the return on investment of complaint handling in function of the industry (TARP 1986)

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Pierre-Nicolas est Docteur en Marketing et dirige l'agence d'études de marché IntoTheMinds. Ses domaines de prédilection sont le BigData l'e-commerce, le commerce de proximité, l'HoReCa et la logistique. Il est également chercheur en marketing à l'Université Libre de Bruxelles et sert de coach et formateur à plusieurs organisations et institutions publiques. Il peut être contacté par email, Linkedin ou par téléphone (+32 486 42 79 42)

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