Customers and Vendors disagree on Loyalty

A survey with no apparent definition of the sample size or the specifics of the respondents offers some very intersting insights. The results have been published by Marketing Sherpa. The respondents were webinar attendees. Questions were asked to both vendors and customers. The vendors were asked why they think their customers left them. The customers were asked why they left the vendor. Here are the startling results.

1. Vendors said that 56% of their customers left because of price. When the customers were asked only 29% of the customers said they left because of price.

2. Vendors said that 17% of their customers left because of customer service. When the customers were asked 40% said they left because of customer service.

3. Vendors said that 14% of their customers left because of capabilities and features of their products and services. When the customers were asked only 11% said they left because of the capabilities and features of the vendor's products and services.

4. Vendors said that 8% of their customers left because of scalability. When the customers were asked 13% said they left because of scalability.

The bottom line (if we can believe the validity of the survey) is that vendors are listening to their sales people and not the customers. Sometimes the customer will say that price is the reason they are leaving rather than having to explain and defend the real reason for leaving to the sales person. It appears that more customers seem to be leaving because of customer service rather than price. One might also conclude that price is less important than the customer relationship.