Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, in collaboration with W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and Dialog Direct, conducted the seventh study wave since the 1976 seminal White House Study on customer care, offering a clear comparison of customer satisfaction with corporate customer care over the years and a basis for understanding the relative impact of corporate investments in customer care over the past nearly four decades.
2015 NATIONAL CUSTOMER RAGE STUDY METHODOLOGY:
CCMC conducted telephone interviews of a representative sample of 1,000 households. 2015 results’ overall margin of error is + 1.9% -3.1%, at 95% confidence.
Core questions were repeated from the prior six rage surveys, with a focus on the most serious problem with products/services experienced in the past twelve months.
Special focus was paid to Web 2.0, examining online postings about the most serious problems experienced.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST EYE-POPPING KEY FINDINGS & TAKE-AWAYS FROM 2015’S STUDY?
- Revenue at risk to businesses from doing customer care the wrong way: a more than whopping $202 billion dollars
- 2015 customer problem rate increased four percentage points over 2013 to a heart-stopping 54%
- Cable/Satellite TV topped the list of most serious problems, with a big increase in the number of complaints from 2013
- Two-thirds of customers experienced customer rage
- 79% of those with complaints reported their problem to the company
- 63% of complainants felt they got nothing from the company
- When non-monetary remedies, such as an apology, were added to monetary relief, complainant satisfaction nearly doubled from 37% to 73%
- The most annoying customer service catchphrases (such as “Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold”) are identified in rank order
- Telephone beats the Internet by a huge margin (6 to 1) as means to complain
- Whereas businesses used to get increased brand loyalty simply by allowing obvious means to complain, getting people to complain is no longer enough for brand uplift
