Notes

Introduction

1. Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, 2020 National Customer Rage Study, 2020, customercaremc.com/insights/national-customer-rage-study/2020-national-customer-rage-study/.

2. Tom Puthiyamadam and José Reyes, Experience Is Everything: Here’s How to Get It Right (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2018), 9, pwc.com/us/en/zz-test/assets/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf.

3. Edelman, Edelman Trust Barometer 2021, edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2021-03/2021%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer.pdf.

4. Edelman, “2021 Edelman Trust Barometer: Trust and the Food and Beverage Sector,” 2022, edelman.com/trust/2021-trust-barometer/dramatic-declines-food-and-beverage-trust.

5. John Gerzema and Ed Lebar, The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 11.

6. Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York: Harper Business, 2006), 37.

7. SAS Institute, Journey to the Core of Customer Centricity: TM Forum Quick Insights (2017), sas.com/en/whitepapers/journey-to-core-customer-centricity109101.html.

8. Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, 2020 National Customer Rage, 31.

9. Key Findings & Implications from the 2020 National Customer Rage Study, Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, research.wpcarey.asu.edu/services-leadership/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-RageStudyUPDATEDFINALFORRELEASE.pdf.

Chapter One

1. John Goodman with Scott Broetzmann, Strategic Customer Service (New York: HarperCollins Leadership, 2019), 5.

2. Providing solutions to customer complaints is obviously important. However, you will find tucked away in scholarly articles and blog posts the idea that emotional satisfaction is perhaps even more important. Fix the customer’s problems, but as CX Training, an Australian training group, says, focus on emotions first. “Customer Complaints and Conflict—Focus on the Emotions First,” CX Training (blog), cxtraining.com.au/customer-complaints-emotions-first/.

3. Christopher Hart, James L. Heskett, and W. Earl Sasser Jr., “The Profitable Art of Service Recovery,” Harvard Business Review (July–August 1990).

4. John A. Woods and Ronald Zemke, Best Practices in Customer Service (Amherst, MA: HRD Press, 1998).

5. Janelle Barlow and Dianna Maul, Emotional Value: Creating Strong Bonds with Your Customers (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2000), 2.

6. This article has become a classic in the field of service research, which demonstrates that in seven hundred service incidents from the airline, hotel, and restaurant industries, of all the positive memories customers have of good service, fully 25 percent started out as some kind of failure in service delivery. Mary Jo Bitner, Bernard H. Booms, and Mary Tetreault, “The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents,” Journal of Marketing 54, no. 1 (January 1990): 71.

7. Danyel Barnard, “Group Empathy,” Fast Company, August 31, 1998, fastcompany.com/35210/group-empathy.

8. Beth Azar, “LeDoux Outlines His Theory of Emotions and Memory,” American Psychological Monitor, July 15, 1998, http://psychnet.weebly.com/uploads/9/2/2/8/9228366/emotions_and_memory.pdf.

9. Alan J. Resnik and Robert R. Harmon, “Consumer Complaints and Managerial Response: A Holistic Approach,” Journal of Marketing 47, no. 1 (Winter 1983), 86–97.

10. Claes Fornell and Birger Wernerfelt, “Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis,” Journal of Marketing Research 24, no. 4 (November 1987), 337–346, doi.org/10.1177/002224378702400401.

11. Marie T. Dasborough and Paul Harvey, “Attributions,” Oxford Bibliographies, February 18, 2021, oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199846740/obo-9780199846740-0106.xml.

12. “Publix,” Complaints Department, complaintsdepartment.com/publix/.

13. “About Us,” Wegmans, wegmans.com/about-us/.

Chapter Two

1. John Goodman and Cindy Grimm, “Beware of Trained Hopelessness,” ICCM Weekly, May 2007.

2. Colin Shaw, “15 Statistics That Should Change the Business World— but Haven’t,” Beyond Philosophy (blog), June 10, 2013, beyondphilosophy.com/15-statistics-that-should-change-the-business-world-but-havent/. This blog lists fifteen statistics accumulated from a variety of sources, many of which are repeats of earlier data.

3. Chase Buckle et al., Trends 19: The Trends to Know for 2019, GlobalWebIndex , 2019, gwi.com/hubfs/Downloads/Trends-19-report.pdf.

4. Buckle et al., Trends 19.

5. Dimensional Research, Customer Service and Business Results: A Survey of Customer Service from Mid-Size Companies, April 2013, documents.pub/document/customer-service-and-business-results-cdn-the-surveys-main-intent-was.html.

6. Milica Arsenovic, “34 Key Customer Service Statistics You Should Know in 2022,” Capital Counselor (blog), January 11, 2022, capitalcounselor.com/customer-service-statistics/.

Chapter Three

1. Fred Wiersema, “Are You Ready for a Relationship?” Chief Executive Magazine, November 1999.

2. Jeffrey Pfeffer, What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom about Management (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007).

3. Matt Mansfield, “Customer Retention Statistics: The Ultimate Collection for Small Businesses,” Small Business Trends (blog), January 22, 2021, smallbiztrends.com/2016/10/customer-retention-statistics.html.

4. Claes Fornell and Birger Wernerfelt, “Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis,” Journal of Marketing Research 24, no. 4 (November 1987), 337–346, doi.org/10.1177/002224378702400401.

5. Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, Consumer Response Annual Report: January 1 – December 31, 2020, March 2021, CFPB=_2020-consumer-response-annual-report_03-2021.pdf.

6. Bureau, Consumer Response, 1.

7. Bureau, Consumer Response, 2.

8. “5 Customer Complaints about Packaging,” UCS Global Logistics Specialists (blog), September 20, 2018, useucs.com/archives/blog/5-customer-complaints-about-packaging-and-how-to-avoid-them.

9. Rami Tabari, “Is Dell Customer Service Good? 2020 Rating,” Laptop Magazine, April 13, 2020.

10. Peter Whoriskey, “Bangalore Backlash: Call Centers Return to U.S.,” CantonRep.com, January 2009.

11. Chris Welch, “T-Mobile Is Completely Overhauling How Its Customer Service Works,” Verge, August 15, 2018.

12. Thomas Dichter, “Call Centers Return to the U.S.,” Forbes, March 3, 2019, forbes.com/sites/thomasdichter/2019/03/30/call-centers-return-to-the-u-s-more-companies-get-the-link-between-customer-service-and-profit/.

13. Thomas Hobbs, “Why Building Long-Term Brand Loyalty Starts from Within,” Marketing Week, June 27, 2017.

14. Patrick Bet-David, “Which Comes First, Being Liked or Trusted?” LinkedIn, April 16, 2015.

15. Guy Winch, “Customer Complaints: The Expressway to Customer Loyalty,” Return Customer (newsletter), 2022. Winch is the author of The Squeaky Wheel (2011), a broad-ranging and excellent book.

16. Mary Jo Bitner, Bernard H. Booms, and Mary Tetreault, “The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents,” Journal of Marketing 54, no. 1 (January 1990): 71.

17. Winch, “Customer Complaints.”

18. “Amazon.com,” Consumer Affairs, consumeraffairs.com/online/amazon.html. Website continually updated.

19. Astrid Pocklington, “Customer Complaints: Are They a Curse or a Blessing?” Forbes, September 3, 2020.

20. Priscilla A. LaBarbera and David Mazursky, “A Longitudinal Assessment of Consumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction: The Dynamic Aspect of the Cognitive Process,” Journal of Marketing Research 20 (November 1983): 393–404. LaBarbera’s research, along with dozens of others’ research in this area, is cited in Susan M. Keaveney and Madhavan Parthasarathy, “Customer Switching Behavior in Online Services,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (Fall 2001).

21. Steve Coomes, “Turning Newcomers into Lifetime Customers,” Pizza Marketplace, June 15, 2006, pizzamarketplace.com/article.php?id=5228 (site discontinued).

22. Angel Sergeev, “Average American Now Spends Nearly $800 a Month on Their Car,” Motor1.com, September 13, 2019, motor1.com/news/370609/average-american-monthly-car-spendings/; “Average American Spends over $250,000 on Automobiles,” MotorTrend News, December 20, 2004, motortrend.com/news/news041220-costs/.

23. Eric Frenchman, “What the Vonage—Again,” Pardon My French (blog), May 18, 2006, pardonmyfrench.typepad.com/pardonmyfrench/2006/05/what_the_vonage.html.

Chapter Four

1. Financial Services Authority, Review of Complaint Handling in Banking Groups, April 2010, fca.org.uk/publication/archive/fsa-review-of-complaint-handling-in-banking-groups.pdf.

2. Ken Dooley, “A Never-Ending Complaint: 7 Best Practices to Overcome Price Objections,” Resourceful Selling (2020), https://www.resourcefulselling.com/price-objections/.

3. Dialog Direct, The Customer Rage Study: An Independent Study of Customer Complaint-Handling Experiences, 15, epicconnections.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DialogDirect_CustRage_Guide_v5_0.pdf.

4. “2015 National Customer Rage Study,” Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, customercaremc.com/insights/national-customer-rage-study/2015-national-customer-rage-study/.

5. Elise Dopson, “Business Apologies: What You Should (and Shouldn’t) Do,” Business 2 Community, January 21, 2019, business2community.com/crisis-management/business-apologies-what-you-should-and-shouldnt-do-02162250.

6. Camila Domonoske, “After Unsatisfying Answers, United Offers ‘Deepest Apology’ for Violent Confrontation,” NPR, npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/11/523451560/after-unsatisfying-answers-united-offers-deepest-apology-for-violent-video.

7. Carol Hymowitz, “Everyone Likes to Laud Serving the Customer; Doing It Is the Problem,” Wall Street Journal (February 27, 2006), B1. A good summary article about overapologizing is Jay Rai, “Why Over-Apologizing Can Destroy Your Confidence At Work (and How to Avoid It),” Forbes, May 4, 2021. See also Richard Britt, “You’re Not Really Sorry,” Call Miner, May 24, 2021; and Gene Marks, “3 Reasons Why Apologizing Hurts Your Business,” Entrepreneur, March 2, 2015.

8. Deteline Marinova, Sunil K. Singh, and Jagdip Singh, “Frontline Problem-Solving Effectiveness: A Dynamic Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Cues,” Journal of Marketing Research 55, no. 2 (2018): 178–192.

9. Hymowitz, “Everyone Likes to Laud.”

10. Vincent C. S. Heung and Terry Lam, “Customer Complaint Behavior Towards Hotel Restaurant Services,” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 15 (2003): 283–289.

11. Kirti Dutta, Umashankar Venkatesh, and H. G. Parsa, “Service Failure and Recovery Strategies in the Restaurant Sector: An Indo-US Comparative Study,” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 19, no. 5 (July 2007): 351–363.

12. Charlotte Klopp and John Sterlicchi, “Customer Satisfaction Just Catching on in Europe,” Marketing News 24, no. 11 (May 28, 1990).

Chapter Five

1. An excellent article that reviews in great depth how these exchanges work is Eva Traut-Mattausch et al., “Complaints as Starting Point for Vicious Cycles in Customer-Employee-Interactions,” Frontiers in Psychology 16 (October 16, 2015).

2. Chris Welch, “Best Buy Pulls TCL Google TVs Amid Complaints of Slow, Buggy Software,” Verge, December 9, 2021, theverge.com/2021/12/9/22826619/tcl-6-5-series-google-tv-best-buy-removal-os-bugs-slow.

3. Holger Roschk, Jana Muller, and Katja Gelbrich, “Age Matters: How Developmental Stages of Adulthood Affect Customer Reaction to Complaint Handling Efforts,” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013): 154–164, vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/age-matters-how-developmental-stages-of-adulthood-affect-customer.

4. Roschk, Muller, and Gelbrich, “Age Matters.”

5. A. Parasuraman, “Assessing and Improving Service Performance for Maximum Impact: Insights from a Two-Decade-Long Research Journey,” Performance Measurement and Metrics 5 (2004): 45–52.

Chapter Six

1. “Which Customers Complain the Most about Customer Service,” CSM: The Magazine for Customer Service Managers and Professionals, October 2021.

2. Diana Kaemingk, “Online Reviews Statistics to Know in 2022,” Qualtrics Blog, October 30, 2020.

3. Peter Maas, “How Insurance Brokers Create Value—a Functional Approach,” Risk Management and Insurance Review 13, no. 1 (March 2010): 1–20, doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6296.2009.01176.x.

4. Colin Shaw, “15 Statistics That Should Change the Business World— but Haven’t,” Beyond Philosophy, June 10, 2013, beyondphilosophy.com/15-statistics-that-should-change-the-business-world-but-havent/.

5. Marsha Richins has written an extensive number of papers on this topic, especially in the last five years. Marsha L. Richins, “Negative Word-of-Mouth by Dissatisfied Customers: A Pilot Study,” Journal of Marketing 47, no. 1 (January 1983): 68–78.

6. Matthew Swyers, “5 Steps to Handling a Customer Complaint,” Inc., November 7, 2012.

7. For a set of statistics, see Iva Marinova, “Word of Mouth Marketing Statistics, Fun Facts & Tips in 2020,” Review 42, January 18, 2022, review42.com/resources/word-of-mouth-marketing-statistics/.

8. Oh, Baby! Trends in the Baby Food and Diaper Markets around the World, Nielsen, August 2015, 15, nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/nielsen-global-baby-care-report-august202015.pdf.

9. Jeanna Courter, “E-Commerce Returns: Why Return Policies Are Key to Customer Satisfaction,” PBD Worldwide, August 18, 2017, pbd.com/blog/ecommerce-returns-key-to-satisfaction.

10. Leah Hamilton, “How Your Return Policy Can Affect Customer Retention,” Terms Feed, February 1, 2020, termsfeed.com/blog/how-return-policy-affect-customer-retention/.

11. Hamilton, “How Your Return Policy.”

12. Amanda Bower and James Maxham, “Return Shipping Policies of Online Retailers: Normative Assumptions and the Long-Term Consequences of Fee and Free Returns,” Journal of Marketing 76, no. 5 (September 1, 2012).

Chapter Seven

1. Belinda Luscombe, “Why Everyone Is So Rude Right Now,” Time, October 15, 2021.

2. Luscombe, “Why Everyone Is So Rude.”

3. Chris McVittie et al., “‘We Just Have to Learn to Deal with It’: Young Workers’ Experiences of Workplace Violence,” Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 1, no. 2, (2015): 39–47.

4. For a good overview of this topic, see Roger Bougie, Rik Pieters, and Marcel Zeelenberg, “Angry Customers Don’t Come Back, They Get Back: The Experience and Behavioral Implications of Anger and Dissatisfaction in Services,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 31, no. 4 (2003): 377–393. If you are interested in reading more about this topic, search online for articles that cover customers seeking revenge—there are many.

5. Pete Muntean, “Assault on Flight Attendants ‘One of the Worst’ in Airline’s History, American Airlines CEO Says,” CNN, October 28, 2021, kion546.com/entertainment/cnn-style/2021/10/28/a-coast-to-coast-flight-was-diverted-to-denver-after-a-passenger-assaulted-a-crew-member-american-airlines-says-2/.

6. McVittie et al., “‘We Just Have to Learn.’”

7. Bernd Stauss and Wolfgang Seidel, Complaint Management: The Heart of CRM (Cincinnati: Thomson South-Western, 2004), 180.

8. Jane Spencer, “Cases of Customer Rage Mount as Bad Service Prompts Venting,” Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2003, D4. See also Veronica Krieg, “3 Types of Angry Customers and How to Handle Them,” SharpenCX, April 22, 2021, sharpencx.com/blog/handle-angry-customers/.

9. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, 50th anniv. ed. (New York: Scribner, 2014).

10. Oren Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 204.

Chapter Eight

1. K. T. Berger, Zen Driving: Be a Buddha Behind the Wheel of Your Automobile (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988).

2. GodinsPMA, “How Many Times Does the White Team Pass the Ball?” February 19, 2012, YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=MFBr CM_WYXw.

3. See, for example, CreativityWorks, “Busting the Mehrabian Myth,” July 11, 2009, YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=7dboA8cag1M; see also Olivia Mitchell, “Mehrabian and Nonverbal Communication,” Speaking about Presenting (blog), June 2, 2009, speakingaboutpresenting.com/presentation-myths/mehrabian-nonverbal-communication-research/.

4. Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams, An Introduction to Language, 11th ed. (Boston: Cengage, 2017).

5. See a summary of this research in Karen S. Dallimore, Beverly A. Sparks, and Ken Butcher, “The Influence of Angry Customer Outbursts on Service Providers’ Facial Displays and Affective States,” Journal of Service Research 10, no. 1 (August 2007): 78–92.

6. Jamil Zaki, “Can We Unite Society through Empathy?” Economist, June 11, 2019.

7. Ashley Abramson, “Cultivating Empathy,” Monitor on Psychology, November/December 2021, 50.

8. Moshe Davidow, “Counteracting Value Destruction,” Journal of Creating Value 6, no. 1 (May 29, 2020): 86–96.

9. Amy Lee, “Inside the Apple Store: The Rules That Govern the Retail Chain,” Huffington Post, June 15, 2011.

10. David B. Strohmetz et al., “Sweetening the Till: The Use of Candy to Increase Restaurant Tipping,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 32, no. 2 (February 2002): 300–309.

Chapter Nine

1. John Butler, ed., E-Commerce and Entrepreneurship (Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 2001), 106.

2. Jon Swartz, “Q&A with Stephen Hawking,” USA Today, December 2, 2014, usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/12/02/stephen-hawking-intel-technology/18027597/.

3. Betsy Spethmann, “Brand Marketers Eavesdrop on the Internet to Track Consumer Trends,” What’s the Buzz? Promo, February 1, 2001, promomagazine.com/mag/marketing_whats_buzz/ (site discontinued).

4. Ted Morris, “Listening to the Blogosphere: How Blogging Can Impact Your Brand,” ESOMAR Brandmatters Conference, New York, February 2006.

5. Jonathan Barsky and Cindi Frame, Handling Online Reviews: Best Practices, TripAdvisor (August 28, 2009), cdn.tripadvisor.com/pdfs/ExpertTips_HandlingOnlineReviews.pdf.

6. William Feighery, “Reflexivity and Tourism Research: Telling An(other) Story,” Current Issues in Tourism 9, no. 3 (December 2008): 269–282.

7. Kerry Manis, Yang Wang, and Alexander Chaudhry, “5 Principles for Responding to Customer Reviews,” Harvard Business Review, May 14, 2020.

8. Manis, Wang, and Chaudhry, “5 Principles.”

9. David Proserpio and Giorgos Zervas, “Study: Replying to Customer Reviews Results in Better Ratings,” Harvard Business Review, February 14, 2018.

10. Christopher Elliott, “Airlines Ignore Web Whines,” Elliot Advocacy (blog), July 5, 1999, elliott.org/the-travel-critic/airlines-ignore-web-whines/.

11. Jeffrey Cook, “Senate Approves Measure Giving Airline Passengers New Rights,” ABC News, October 3, 2018, abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-approves-measure-giving-airline-passengers-rights/story?id=58260609.

12. Butler, ed., E-Commerce and Entrepreneurship, 106.

13. Michael Schrage, “A Better Way to Handle Publicly Tweeted Complaints,” Harvard Business Review, November 21, 2011.

14. Yooncheong Cho et al., “An Analysis of Online Customer Complaints: Implications for Web Complaint Management” (paper presented at 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Science, January 2002).

Chapter Ten

1. John Hutchinson, “‘There’s No Toilet Roll, Please Send Help’: Teen Rescued from Embarrassing Mishap after Tweeting Virgin Trains (That Must Have Been an Awkward Handover),” Daily Mail, January 7, 2015, dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2900208/There-s-no-toilet-roll-send-help-Teen-rescued-embarrassing-mishap-TWEETING-Virgin-Trains-awkward-handover.html.

2. See Valerie Priscilla Goby, “Personality and Online/Offline Choices: MBTI Profiles and Favored Communication Modes in a Singapore Study,” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 9, no.1 (2006): 1–13.

3. Arooj Ahmen, “Turns Out There Is a Whole Industry Making Money through Posting Fake Reviews,” Digital Information World, March 11, 2021.

4. Luca D’Urbino, “Facebook Is Nearing a Reputational Point of No Return,” Economist, October 9, 2021.

5. Thessaly La Force, “John Mackey a.k.a. ‘Rahodeb,’” New Yorker, December 30, 2009, newyorker.com/books/page-turner/john-mackey-a-k-a-rahodeb.

6. “Blogs Make Tech Impact: 78% of Tech Journalists Read Them,” Word of Mouth Marketing Association, November 1, 2007, womma.org/research/010223-php (site discontinued).

7. Paul McNamara, “Blog Council Takes a Flogging,” Buzzblog, NetWorkWorld, December 7, 2007, networkworld.com/article/2350001/blog-council-takes-a-flogging.html.

8. Jagdip Singh and Robert E. Wilkes, “When Consumers Complain: A Path Analysis of the Key Antecedents of Consumer Complaint Response Estimates,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 24 no. 4 (1996): 360–365.

Chapter Eleven

1. “Complaints Handling Practice Guide,” Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, November 17, 2021, spso.org.uk/complaints-handling-practice-guide.

2. John Goodman with Scott Broetzmann, Strategic Customer Service (New York: HarperCollins Leadership, 2019), 7.

3. Gillian Laub, Family Matters (New York: Aperture, 2021).