You must be proactive in continually searching out how customers are judging your customer service and then making the necessary corrections or improvements. In fact, sales people are often rewarded for bringing in new accounts while no one gets rewarded for keeping current customers. The TARP study determined it costs five times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing customer. Existing customers are much more profitable than new ones because you have learned how to profitably work with them to meet their needs. To attract new customers you have to invest significant selling and account start-up costs that may not be offset for several months of business.
Lost customers are a really big loss.
Obviously, we lose revenues and profits but we also lose positive word of mouth which would have generated new customers. Worse yet, negative word of mouth is created which keeps potential new customers away. So what do smart business owners and managers do to satisfy and keep good customers. These companies use customer service to generate competitive advantage. They fully know the business impact of customer satisfaction, customer retention and service recovery.