The 2020 National Customer Rage Study was conducted in collaboration with the Center for Services Leadership at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and Kraft-Heinz and just released in June 2020.

We have had some incredible stories written about it, which we wanted to share.

Wall Street Journal

The 2020 National Customer Rage Study was featured recently in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ highlighted one of the good news findings in this year’s Customer Rage Study: 32% of customers were satisfied, up from 21% in 2017.  However, as the article also notes:

• Dissatisfied complainants’ brand loyalty is at an all time low, and it doesn’t only improve by having a complaint-handling program. Complaints must be handled well to ensure brand loyalty;
• A whopping 66% of those surveyed reported a problem with a product or service in the prior twelve months, up from 56% in 2017. And, as the WSJ reports, most of those who complained said they weren’t satisfied with the result;
• At a time when customer expectations are rising, 58% reported receiving nothing at all; and
• Consumers are seeking more than reimbursement, wanting also non-monetary relief such as an apology or reassurance that the issue is fixed across the board.

As WSJ also mentioned, online complaining is here in a big way, offering not only relatively easy means to complain, but also means to spread the dissatisfied word, and consumers are taking advantage.

University of Wisconsin

Everyone at CCMC was delighted to see that, following the release of the 2020 National Customer Rage Study, Scott Broetzmann’s alma mater, University of Wisconsin, recently recognized Scott for his long-standing contributions to creating an extraordinary customer experience.

Scott has dedicated his career to establishing a marketplace that works for buyers and sellers.  By leveraging good science, Scott, along with the CCMC team, has assisted leaders in all industries in strategic investments in customer care that lead to favorable return on investment.

Scott’s business partners, Marc Grainer and John Goodman, were involved in the first of its kind 1976 study on customer care.

To ensure research would continue on customer satisfaction efforts, Customer Care Measurement & Consulting has continued the longitudinal study to track customer satisfaction with corporate complaint handling efforts in an ever evolving marketplace. This research offers all seekers a guide for how to ensure continued brand loyalty.

See what U Wisconsin has to say about Scott here.

BizWomen

And, as BizWomen reports, at the same time the number of those reporting problems has increased, dissatisfied customers are telling twice as many people about their experience (on average, they tell 7 people) as satisfied customers.

BizWomen speculated that the ease of complaining online may be why complaint numbers are higher: perhaps the most profound finding shift since the 2017 study is that complaining online has risen from 12% to 43%.

Common problems were also identified, including:

• unfriendly websites;
• disempowered frontline call center staff, and
• failure to offer non-monetary remedies.

Arizona State University

ASU’s indicates in its National Customer Rage Study press release that the researchers concluded that the data from the study shows that more than 84.9 million households in the US had a problem with a product or service in the last year, and social media has become a significant portal for post-purchase complaining.

As Scott Broetzmann commented, nearly half of folks are also using social media as a source for pre-purchase information. Study participants had an average of 865 connections across social media platforms and shared their woes more than sixteen times a year.

It is clear that social media now plays a dominant role in mediating the customer experience. For more from ASU, visit here.

Interaction Metrics

Interaction Metrics notes that, while many companies care endlessly about their NPS scores and tout customer experience as a differentiator, the 2020 National Customer Rage study shows customers are not feeling the love.  Proposing deep empathy and interactivity through verbatim examination of customer feedback from surveys, this post from InteractionMetrics shares their perspective in great detail on how to improve customer satisfaction, which requires more than NPS survey results.  Read more here.

Business 2 Community

Business 2 Community reports the Rage Study finding that corporate America risks losing $494 billion in revenue by doing customer care the wrong way.  Emphasizing the good and bad news’ Rage Study findings, the article reaffirms, “Do It Right, or Don’t Do It!”  Read more here.