Satisfaction Not Guaranteed

Response times affect customer experience, business reputation

By Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald

What are the key elements of creating a positive or negative customer experience?

Often, businesses think doing a good job, with acceptable workmanship, at a fair price are the driving factors. But recent surveys have found that communication, or lack thereof, is one of the top reasons for dissatisfied customers.

Even if getting back to customers, a business might still be losing them because of poor response times. Consumers’ definition of an acceptable response time often differs from that of a business.

For many local companies, 24 hours has been considered sufficient. However, this general standard was created more than 10 years ago before the rise of social media and instant messaging. So, it should come as no surprise that today’s consumer expects a response even sooner than one business day. Instead, they want their questions answered within minutes, not hours. Planning to e-mail or call back during the next business day or a slow period during the present one just won’t cut it anymore. To keep up on providing prompt customer feedback, team members must be trained and advised to take the necessary steps to cut down response times for all types of customers — prospective and current, happy and unhappy — and to prioritize those queries that require immediate attention.

When it comes to leads and prospective customers, response time is even more crucial given the race against competitor companies to win new business. The name of the game is speed to lead. According to the Harvard Business Review, 78 per cent of new business goes to the quickest responder. Companies that reply first have the opportunity to edu-

cate and influence their prospects, rather than just be compared to competitors.

Answering prospective customers might seem like a straightforward task but only 27 per cent of all leads receive a call back, according to Forbes. And for those that do get one, it’s an average of 47 hours after they reached out. By then, the prospective customer will have probably engaged with other providers, resulting in a missed opportunity.

Many social media platforms provide links for consumers to connect directly with local businesses. For those that use this feature, the average response times are posted there.

Consumers with flooring issues that need to be solved soon may be dealing with multiple organizations like insurers that require answers right away. They probably can’t wait a full day to obtain the necessary information to move on to the next step in the process. They need answers now, not a day later. This can be a challenge for many contractors, especially since many inquiries are made after regular business hours on evenings and weekends.

So, what happens when a business fails to respond within a customer’s expected time frame?

Unfortunately, it can vary. While many customers are understanding of business owners’ needs to have time away from work, they may still have a very specific window in which they expect a call back. If they don’t receive a response or, even worse, get one that assures them of a follow-up within a set period of time and then there’s no follow-up, a business is likely to receive a negative online review.

It’s just as critical, if not more, to have a plan in place to respond quickly to current customers who have a request or complaint. Recent studies show that three-quarters of today’s customer complaints made by telephone are handled by businesses within 24 hours, and only 67 per cent of customers are satisfied with the response time. This indicates that approximately one-third of a business’ customers may expect a call back in less than a day.

When it comes to communicating with customers via e-mail it’s even worse. Only 61 per cent of customers who had issues were satisfied with the speed of e-mail response. That is because almost half the time it’s taking business owners more than 24 hours to respond, which is much too slow for this crowd.

In order to obtain positive customer reviews, businesses need to create and implement a plan to address new and current consumer requests every day within a standard time frame, using the correct system tools to organize and track requests, and the right people and technology to provide consistent customer service.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald is the senior partner marketing manager at Signpost, a provider of customer relationship management and marketing automation software serving more than 20,000 businesses. Signpost helps companies respond instantly to customer requests, streamline communication and build online credibility, all of which can lead to positive reviews.

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