The latest survey on customer satisfaction shows customers are less satisfied than ever with the products and services they are buying. The study, done every two years by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, shows 68 percent of the people who had a complaint, were enraged about the way it was handled.
Professor Mary Jo Bitner of the Center for Services Leadership said the dissatisfaction is coming despite major investments by businesses in customer care programs. Bitner said that includes things like 800 numbers, customer service lines and better ways to return items, and she said the cable and satellite TV, telephone, computer and electronics industries had the largest number of complaints, something she said can be pretty serious for a business.
“If you don’t satisfy a customer that complains to you... that customer is actually less likely to return to you and do business with you than a customer who never complained at all," said Bitner.
Bitner said 50 percent of those surveyed had complained to a company about a product in 2013. That number was 32 percent in 1976 and 45 percent two years ago.