Almost three quarters of UK businesses have no idea what their customers are really thinking.
Market research company Shape the Future has just completed a survey into the customer satisfaction measurement strategies of UK companies. The statistics show that while 70.3 percent claim to measure customer satisfaction, most are only employing very basic and informal tactics, such as relying solely on unsolicited customer feedback. Worryingly, the remaining 29.7 percent cited reasons for not measuring customer satisfaction as:
• Belief that customers would tell them if there were problems (69.4 percent)
• Never thought about it (20.2 percent)
• Too busy (19.0 percent)
• Only 22.6 percent (almost 10 percent of the total sample) planned to measure customer satisfaction in the future
Businesses that rely on unsolicited customer feedback are not getting the information they need. Of those that do measure customer satisfaction, 55.7 percent are only employing the most basic and informal techniques or are waiting for clients to complain. This means that in reality only about a third of businesses (36.1 percent) are really bothering to find out what their customers think, while well over half (56.3 percent) are waiting for their customers to tell them. Previous research indicates that the majority of clients are very unlikely to volunteer this information – they are much more likely just to go to a competitor.
Peter Martin, managing director at Shape the Future said: “What’s interesting about the results is that too many businesses assume that people will give them useful feedback. In reality, unhappy customers often leave without telling them why. Falling sales are not always related to falling demand. Companies may simply be losing market share to their competitors and not even know about it. Given the current economic downturn, business owners and managers need as much detail and business information ammunition to hand as possible.”
