UK consumers are prepared to take their money elsewhere as a result of poor customer service - an action that is costing businesses £4.7 million per day.
That's the conclusion drawn up by NewVoiceMedia, cited by freshbusinessthinking.com, which claims that 95 per cent of consumers take some form of action following inadequate service.
In addition, half of consumers are so put off calling a business for fear of being kept on hold, they'll happily use a competitor without even attempting to resolve the problem.
The figures highlight just how important customer service is valued by UK consumers, which could encourage a firm's CEO to further coach or train customer-facing employees on their customer experience skills.
Finally, 56 per cent would never use a company again if they had a bad experience while a quarter would tell their friends not to use the business. A fifth would go online to post a negative review on review sites, cites retail-digital.com.
Jonathan Gale, representative of NewVoiceMedia, commented on the figures: "This proves that Britain's reputation for 'grinning and bearing it' when it comes to bad service is well and truly on the way out.
"We're becoming less tolerant to anything less than perfect customer service, and we'll instantly go elsewhere if it's not up to scratch," he added.