“Only” 600 Complaints a Year. Ouch.

While still writing Five-Star Customer Service, I attended a presentation given by one of the Boston area’s bank presidents on Best Practices. We in the audience sat there for an hour as she explained all of the terrific customer service initiatives that her bank had undertaken in the previous year, and the wonderful results they had seen thus far. Indeed, things had gotten better for this bank: now a full 88% of their customers were “satisfied or very satisfied” with this institution.

Not long ago, I met with a (self-proclaimed) billionaire car dealer who told me that they “only” receive about 600 complaints per year.

Just last week, the owner of a small IT firm accepted my book, which I was signing before my presentation, and said, “Great! I can’t wait to give it to my customer service guy. He could really use it.”

“I’ll see you at my talk, then,” I said with a smile.

He looked at me quizzically and said, “Do you think I’ll benefit from your seminar? After all, I’ve got someone to do customer service.”

What do these three business leaders, in three completely different fields, have in common? None of them gets it. None even comes close to getting it.

The Bank: Twelve percent of that large bank’s customers aren’t even “satisfied,” not to mention happy or Delighted. Having customers who are merely “satisfied” is nothing to brag about. After most meals, you’re “satisfied” – you’re full; you’re not hungry any more. But did you like the meal? Are you likely to go back? Would you recommend the restaurant to a friend?

“Satisfied” doesn’t mean Yes to any of these. The most that it means is, “Maybe.” But implicit in every Maybe is its evil twin, Maybe not.

When the question is customer service, you do not want to run a business on Maybes. Maybes will kill you. Merely “Satisfied” customers will spell the end of your firm, just as soon as an outstanding competitor enters the market to steal them from you.

The Car Dealer: “Only” 600 complaints a year? For accuracy’s sake, you’d have to multiply that number by about twenty. In other words, six hundred customers were kind enough to tell this car dealer what nearly twelve thousand did not: that they’re unhappy, frustrated, and not even “Satisfied.” This billionaire may win back some of the first six hundred, but he’s never even going to have a chance with the others, because they haven’t identified themselves.

As for his customers who aren’t unhappy, but who are only “Satisfied?” Will they buy from him again? Maybe. Or Maybe not.

The IT Firm: An owner or CEO cannot relegate customer service to an underling and consider it done. Why not? There are several considerations.

1. Customer service is not one department’s responsibility. Companies must have a culture of Delighting the customer, an internal ethic that stretches across all parts of the firm, from the board to engineering to accounts payable to tech support to sales to the mail room… Get the idea? Companies such as Lexus, Nordstrom, Wegman’s, Philips Lifeline, Ritz-Carlton, LL Bean, Saratoga Technologies, Wachovia, Zoots, Lands End, and all other Five-Star Customer Service providers have Customer Delight in their blood. People who work for these firms are intensely proud of their companies. That pride stems from quality, and that quality is derived from a single-minded focus on Spoiling the Customer Rotten.

2. Customer service leaders and their departments get no respect in most firms. Their function is seen as touchy-feely fluff by the rest of the company. Their job is to fix what the other departments break. Their entire function is an afterthought. This budget is the first to get slashed in lean times, the first to get outsourced and offshored. If Customer Delight isn’t the obsession of the CEO, it will never – never – reach that elusive Five-Star level. Indeed, it’ll almost certainly miss four-star status as well.

3. Even when the CEO is excited by the idea of superlative customer service, he can’t farm it out to someone below the C-level. He also must understand what Customer Delight really means: how it is defined, and how his company can make it happen. If he isn’t himself the master of this discipline, then he will not be able to adequately champion his company’s Customer Delight efforts. He may inadvertently get in their way.

What’s the upside to this cautionary tale? Nobody gets it. Business leaders have no clue about customer service: big banks don’t know that when 12% of its customers are dissatisfied, that’s 11.998% too many – and that there is something they can do about it. Car dealers don’t get that 600 complaints represents about 12,000 unhappy customers – and those 12,000 are going to make the competition rich. Even small business leaders, who should know best where their bread is buttered, don’t see the benefit of a tireless commitment to Customer Delight.

…So, if you get it, your fortune is virtually assured. And that’s some really good news for you.