Some Gender Differences in Unhappy Customers
When it comes to gender differences of unhappy customers, men will boycott a company twice as long as women if they are unhappy. However, the silver lining to that statistic is that men are also much more easily satisfied after resolution to a complaint.
Examining the chart below *, courtesy of Customer Champions of the UK, it is clear that regardless of gender, when it comes to customer complaints companies are falling short in customer expectations across the board. In fact, companies exceed customer expectations only in one category: ignoring the customer’s complaint entirely.
More often, customers expect companies to “take responsibility” for the problem, to claim ownership of the mistake rather than provide “compensation,” and that expectation is not being met for either gender. Women, in particular, expect “to be taken seriously,” but they do not feel they are.
While men are a bit more focused on receiving “compensation” as part of their complaint resolution, women are more likely to expect both “acknowledgement” of their complaint as well as a “thank you” for bringing the issue to the company’s attention. Women are also more likely to expect companies to get back to them when they said they will.
What bothers me, though, is that women are telling us that they don’t feel heard: Women feel that 40% of their complaints go unresolved. We need to ask ourselves why companies are not meeting the expectations of customers, and of women in particular.
Sincerely,
