Most of our clients will measure the success of their advertising with us by the growth of their business.  But sometimes, we deliver the customer to the business, but the business either does not sell the prospects or does not retain them.  How they handle customer complaints is large part of retaining business.

The following statistics were generated by the Technical Assistance Research Programs.  You might want to pass these along to your clients.

1. On average, 26 unhappy customers will not complain for every one who does.
2. Each of these 27 unhappy customers will tell an average of 16 other people about his bad experience.
3. It costs 5 times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to keep an old one.
4. 91% of your unhappy customers will never buy from you again.
5. If you make a good effort to remedy your customers' complaints, 82% of them will stay with you.

You can make an unhappy customer happy by asking him three questions:

1. What has happened?
2. What should have happened?
3. What can I do to make it right?

Helping our advertisers to retain their customers will help us to retain ours.  We become partners in creating successful marketing campaigns.

PS: It's a good idea to remember these statistics when we have a customer unhappy with us, too.