The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Trained Hopelessness
Thursday - October 20, 2005 01:52 PM in
I read a most interesting article this morning by well respected researcher John Goodman of TARP on the topic of what he refers to as "trained hopelessness".
In our own research and writings, we've commented on the fact that humans resist participation in taking surveys and that one of the reasons is that they don't think the company is serious about learning their opinions. Mr. Goodman makes the same observation with respect to the declining number of complaints that companies are receiving. His point is that the old rule of thumb that for every complaint a company gets there are 10 or 20 or 50 (pick a number) disgruntled customers who never tell you about their dissatisfaction is no longer true. He suggests that consumers have become so conditioned to poor service and have such low expectations, that fewer bother to complain anymore. He says their logic is "It doesn't make any difference, so why bother." Mr. Goodman goes on to suggest mounting evidence that today for every complaint, there are two thousand more customers who don't bother to say anything, they just take their business elsewhere. Whoa! If Mr. Goodman is anywhere near close, and he may well be; how you deal with complaints is exponentially more important today than in times past. Food for thought right?
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 01:52 PM by | | | |