There is some simple wisdom about having customers. It costs 10 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to sell to an existing one. Then, with a strange lack of gratitude, a happy customer will tell between 0 and 3 people whereas an unhappy one will tell more than 10 people of their negative experiences. These figures were created before the advent of email, Internet forums, blogs etc. so I can only assume the picture now is even more extreme.

As part of the cost of having customers, support can make a big difference to the profitability of companies like ISP’s, ASP’s, software companies – in fact most companies that are driving towards low revenues per customer. These companies need to focus on operational excellence and hence low cost customer support.   more »