More Likely to Vent Than to Recommend?

Customer experience has always been a very important factor in consumers’ decision between different brands or service providers. If you’re treated badly at a restaurant, chances are you pick a different place to eat next time. But these days, in the age of social media and recommendation aggregators such as Yelp, customer experiences, be they good or bad, can reverberate beyond the customers themselves and suddenly one customer’s bad meal can turn tens, if not hundreds of customers away.

According to new research conducted by the Temkin Group, people tend to share their customer experiences with others, be it in person with friends or family, on social media or elsewhere. Interestingly, the tendency to publicly comment on an experience with a certain company is stronger when the experience is negative. 34 percent of the consumers surveyed by the Temkin Group stated to have not told anybody about a very good experience with a company recently while only 27 percent kept a very negative experience to themselves.

The following chart sums up the survey’s results, showing that consumers are more likely to vent than to recommend when it comes to sharing their personal customer experiences.