Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

When a product or service doesn’t work as promised, some people get angry. Really angry.

Cloud contact center provider Five9 released a report and infographic today looking at “customer rage” and what companies can do to prevent it. Turns out 85 percent of consumers will retaliate against a company if their customer service needs are not met. 49 percent of all consumers will stop doing business with that company, and 18-34 year olds are three times as likely to vent their frustrations on social media.

My hatred of US mobile phone companies isn’t something new to anyone who follows me. In the past few weeks, I’ve had multiple opportunities to complain about Verizon Wireless, due to their consistent inability to get even the simplest request right. But this one truly takes the cake. Read on for a lesson about how when a door locks, you go through a window (and cost the door a heck of a lot of money.)

I’ve been traveling abroad a lot lately, giving speeches, consulting, skydiving in the desert. You know, the usual stuff. Knowing I had multiple trips abroad coming up, I called Verizon while I was still in NYC, asking to have their International Data Roaming package installed on my plan. Essentially, it’s $20 for 100 megabytes of data, or $200 per gig. It’s expensive, but in my opinion, being connected overseas and not being tethered to WiFi is worth it. After multiple assurances that it was on my plan and wouldn’t be coming off, I trusted Verizon and hung up after thanking the rep who helped me....