StellaService released a study this month showing that the value to online retail of great customer service is $17.3 Billion.

Yes. Billion.

With a "B".

Not only that, but these customers were willing to pay a 10.7% premium for this kind of service.

What makes great customer service?

A couple of items mentioned in the study:

• One-third of respondents said a live CSR should be on the line within 30 seconds of the customer's call.
• 80% expect email replies within one hour. 

Now, this is for online retail, but I think it transfers quite well to B2B. After all, what is a business but another customer? Why would a business expect anything less from another business than an individual customer would? This study shows that customers have very high expectations for customer service to be great. The same applies to B2B.

None of us who run a business have time to spare waiting for a potential vendor to respond to us. We are no different than B2C. We may even be more exacting simply because our time is even tighter and the importance of great customer service even higher. 

Our vendors can influence how well our business runs, which in turn influences our own customers. We can't afford to have our customers dissatisfied, so we need to know that our vendors are just as concerned for our customers as we are and that they will show it by giving us great customer service to keep us running at our best.

Businesses are made up of people. So no matter if you are B2C or B2B, there is a high bar set for great customer service. Businesses can leave other businesses just as individual customers do. With a narrower community, the reputation of B2B vendors can be spread quickly. And since B2B businesses have fewer discrete customers, losing one is an even bigger impact that when a single consumer leaves a B2C business.

Don't discount this study, B2Bs, just because it was aimed at the retail market.