1:100 ratio for unhappy customer(s)

I am looking to find hard data and research studies on what the ratio is between a vocal disgruntled customer, and silent ones e.g. one unhappy customer speaks on behalf of one hundred.

 

That's going to be hard to find. On the net it's more like a 1: 1 million ratio. And it's not always the vocal ones you're looking for, it's the silent ones "the silent majority". This really happened in a forum I was in for a great graphics application.

There were over three million users of this particular application, a lot of which posted new tutorials each week for new users. As the years went on more and more noobs began buying the app and using the tutorials. Note, this was millions of users around the world. Then three noobs began belly achin' about changing the interface and adding new things that could already be done had they just asked the tutorial writers like myself. But instead, the application developers listened to the three "wish list" members and revamped the entire application. Thereby making it unusable, unstable and worthless to the millions that initially helped to built it, market it etc. The "silent majority" rose up in protest in the forum "vocally" bashing the developers and forum administrators for destroying the application because "they" believed it was nothing but a toy application. All but a small few of those members and users have moved onto other applications and at last check the company was struggling so bad they dropped the prices of all their applications drastically just to hold on.

 

Surveys are taken all of the time in the public domain, and considered representative, so I was looking for a figure that scaled.

If you look at the populace eligible to vote at the national level in the UK:

U.K.46,000,000
ENGLAND : 39,000,000
SCOTLAND : 4,000,000
WALES : 2,300,000
NORTHERN IRELAND : 1,200,000
CORNWALL : 434,000

ref : https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/december2020
ref : https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/datasets/electoralstatisticsforuk


I though that 5% would be representative e.g. 2,300,000 at U.K. national level, with 115,000 at the regional level for Wales, and 21,700 at the local level for Cornwall.

That is a ratio of 20:1

Surely that would be "fair" ?

 

If you are asking above if a scientific survey of 5% of the UK voting population would be "fair" (representative?), the answer is that if the respondents were picked randomly and the questions minimized bias, it would be considered a statistically significant survey. It would also be absurdly expensive and difficult to do. If, on the other hand, you have randomly picked a 20:1 nonvocal to vocal complainant ratio and are using actual data (UK voting population) to make it seem like there is some science to your method, then that is totally meaningless. Picking a 20:1 ratio out of the air is not a way to develop a convincing analysis.

You also need to re-read the @sarahk post above. It really, really matters what pain the complaint is about. Is it a $80,000 car or a $1 candy bar? Was it a catastrophic brake failure or did the candy bar seem a little smaller than usual? Vocal/nonvocal complaints and ratios will vary tremendously based on the perceived pain.

 

true statement right there I agree with you