Service in A Time of Rapid Change: Diligent Listening – Understand Your Customers’ Challenge

In early April, just weeks after communities across the country shut down in an attempt to slow the spread of a frightening new virus, the consulting firm McKinsey polled U.S. consumers about their level of distress. According to the report, “64 percent of respondents have felt depressed, anxious, or both over the past several weeks, and 39 percent stated that they would be unable to pay their bills after one month of unemployment.” Abruptly, the needs and desires of customers changed. Consumers and companies alike were fearful of contagion and worried about their survival.

What Can You Do to Make Them Happy? Results from the 2020 Customer Rage Study

A recent survey shows just how unsatisfied Americans are with the products and services they buy. The 2020 Customer Rage study, conducted by Customer Measurement Care and Consulting (CCMC) in conjunction with the Center for Services Leadership at W. P. Carey University and Kraft Heinz, shows more than two thirds of households experienced at least one problem during the past 12 months, making people frustrated and angry. This is the ninth study wave since the original such study was conducted for the White House in 1976.

ServiceFriday: Riveting Research on Restaurant Reviews

To celebrate the 500th episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, Corden invited world renowned chef Gordon Ramsey to participate in a skit with himself and Big Brother’s host Julie Chen. Ramsey, never known for his patience or holding back on his critiques, absolutely levels Chen in the skit by holding a piece of bread on each side of her head and asks her vehemently what is she. Chen’s response, “An idiot sandwich.”, quickly became an iconic meme befitting of the time.

ServiceFriday: Temper Tantrum Technique – How the Intensity of Customer Anger Impacts Compensation

In one episode of the hit sitcom Seinfeld, Jerry’s car gets stolen so he must use a rental car in the meantime. As is typical for the show, another hilarious service failure ensues as the rental car agency employee informs Jerry that, despite his reservation, they were out of midsize cars.

ServiceFriday: Speaking vs. Writing – Which Word-of-Mouth is Better?

Businesses are constantly faced with the question of how to more effectively engage customers with their brand. Encouraging positive word-of-mouth between consumers can be beneficial, but how influential is the means through which they choose to communicate? With online review platforms so readily available, consumers tend to write their opinions for others to read, but studies are showing oral communication establishes a much stronger feeling of affiliation and loyalty towards a brand, especially for the communicating consumer.

ServiceFriday: Twitter – The Key to Maintaining Positive Relationships with Customers

Service providers have primarily utilized social media to generate positive word-of-mouth. However, what happens when customers spread negative reviews through online platforms, and how can service providers recover from this? In an article published in the Journal of Services Marketing, the authors observe how companies can implement service failure recovery strategies through social media, specifically Twitter.

ServiceFriday: Invest in Divestment – How to Avoid Customer Revenge

It’s cheaper to keep a customer then to attain a new one is how the old saying goes, but what happens when the time comes for service providers to divest from customer service contracts? Divestment occurs by contract demotion (cutting back services) or termination and “is not based on mutual agreement but solely on the provider’s relationship valuation.” Initial research has shown that divested customers retaliate by engaging in revenge behaviors such as negative word-of-mouth, marketplace aggression and vindictive complaining.

ServiceFriday: Culture Affects Perception of Service

Service failures can make or break a company’s competitive edge, but the degree to which this can affect a company can change dramatically across different cultures. Globalization has allowed for businesses to reach consumers all around the world, but many are failing to manage behavioral responses to failures based on culture, and are mistakenly focusing on a specific one they are most familiar with. As service failures are inevitable, companies’ ability to bounce back and understand how customers from different cultures are affected by a dissatisfactory experience is crucial.

ServiceFriday: Which Customers Award More Five Star Reviews?

Customers are doing their research before buying, and increasingly they are relying on other people for the information they want. They consider online reviews, social media recommendations and word of mouth, searching for non-commercial, unbiased advice. Marketing scholars have started to study this behavior, but only lately have looked at customer groups and the differing ways they engage in referral.

ServiceFriday: Tell Me About It – Getting the Front Line to Share Customer Complaints

Customer complaints are alarm bells: the voice of an unhappy customer can help a company understand where it needs to refine its service procedures. But managers never learn about 71 percent of customer complaints because front line employees are not reporting them. Research published in the Journal of Service Research identifies three factors that affect employees’ willingness to report and recommends training their managers to address those issues. The research was conducted in Germany and China, providing competitive insights into service employee behavior across cultural lines.