Study: 85 percent of consumers will retaliate against a company following a poor customer service experience A few months ago, Five9, a leading provider of cloud contact center software, published a press release announcing the results of its Five9 2013 Contact Center Report, which revealed important insights into consumer behavior as it pertains to customer service interactions. According to the report, 70 percent of consumers contact companies via telephone if they have an important customer service need. Furthermore, 85 percent of the individuals surveyed by Five9 indicated that if they have a poor customer service experience, they will retaliate against a company by either taking their business elsewhere, asking to speak to a manager or venting on social media. "After consumers purchase a product, they want to know a company is going to support them," Liz Osborn, vice president of product and solution marketing at Five9, said in a press statement. "Consumers also want to be in control of their service interactions with the company. And if their needs aren't met, it only takes a moment for customers to become infuriated. This results in a horrible experience for both the customer and the front-line customer service agents." Fortunately, there are effective ways for customer service agents to calm angry customers — and, ideally, to prevent them from becoming enraged in the first place. Consumers revealed that they are more likely to be forgiving of companies that can't resolve their problems when customer service agents are friendly, patient, sympathetic and respectful. Of course, it's in every company's best interest to provide the best customer service possible at all times. To do this, many companies outsource these operations to domestic inbound call centers and the process by which the contact center onboards the new customer does a deep dive into training, staffing, quality control, agent monitoring, metrics and other day to day disciplines. The result often is an improvement in the internal workings of a customer service operation and the added flexibility and call handling that an outsourced relationship provides.