People buy products and services because of feelings – how comfortable they feel about the company, the products and the people who are serving them. If you can make your customers feel better about your company, they are much more likely to return and buy again.

Most companies cannot afford to have only one product to sell. Therefore, how you treat your customers today will seriously affect the sales of all your products tomorrow.

Several years ago Allstate Insurance Company did a customer survey. Allstate found that through word—of—mouth, one dissatisfied customer can spoil as many as ten potential sales to new customers. As a result of that survey Allstate started a company—wide campaign to improve their customer service.

One survey found that the typical business hears from only 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers. The other 96 percent slip quietly into the night and never come back.

Another survey found these answers to "Why customers leave"..

3% Move Away
5% Develop other vendor relationships
9% Leave for competitive reasons
14% Are dissatisfied with product or service
68% Leave because of an attitude of indifference toward them by the staff

A typical unsatisfied customer will tell eight to ten people about his/her problem. It takes twelve positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident.

Seven out of ten complaining customers will do business with you again, IF you resolve the complaint in their favor.

The average business spends five times more money to attract new customers than it does to keep old ones.

And yet there are still owners, managers and supervisors who still say, "Customer service isn't important."