Stats You Might (Not) Like
Back in September, on a long flight home from Atlantic City and the Arett Sales Open House, I flipped through US Airways’ in-flight magazine.
Between the magazine’s hard sell to get me interested in Charleston and the “intimate” 600-word tour of Italy, I found an infographic on page 20 that was definitely worth my attention.
Its header read: “The Customer: Everything Counts.” Next thing I knew, I marked it all up with my yellow highlighter. And then after feeling guilty about that, I tore out the entire page and tucked it away in my carry-on. (Someone had already half-finished the “Speak Yiddish” crossword, so I figured this copy was already a lost cause.)
Stat Speak
According to Vision Critical’s consumer research, the analytics provider of this infographic, 80 percent of customers will not buy from a business if it has negative online reviews.
There were four stats in total on this page. When I returned home and got back into the office, I wanted more.
I went to Vision Critical’s website www.visioncritical.com and learned page 20 was just a snippet of their research that came from an even bigger infographic called “The Cost of Unhappy Customers.”
Here are five nuggets from it that might be of interest to you:
1. Ninety percent of businesses claim they provide an excellent experience, yet according to consumers only 3 percent really do.
2. A customer is three times more likely to spill the beans about their negative experience with you than their positive experience.
3. It takes 12 positive reviews to offset one negative review.
4. When a customer’s issue is resolved by a business, that customer will tell four to six people about their positive experience.
5. To receive better customer service, 59 percent of consumers are willing to give a new brand a chance.
i’m with Stan on this one
Number three from above is one that really stands out to me above the rest. The power of ONE negative review is so influential. Consumers find them almost impossible to ignore.
In this month’s edition of Pohmer On… (page 32), Stan talks about his online experiences when planning a trip to Europe.
“Our decisions were made strictly on the information that was available to us online through the aggregators, the individual B&B website and user ratings and comments,” he says.
He said scouring the Internet for places to stay really drove the point home as to how much we rely on the feedback of others before we spend our money.
“If [consumers] can’t find a positive recommendation for your business on social media Facebook, Yelp or Twitter they might think twice about making a trip to your store.”
Stan’s right. Whether you like it or not, online comments are a marketing tool that are either working for you or against you. As Stan says, “Get moving on it before your competitors build their business at your expense.”
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