Businesses looking to cut costs should think twice before they make changes that could lead to lower-quality service. People are more likely than ever to spread the word after a bad customer-service experience.

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If you sell someone two curtains that don’t match you should apologize and take one back

That’s according to a new survey of more than 2,000 consumers conducted by Harris Interactive. The survey was sponsored by RightNow Technologies, which makes customer-management software. As with every corporate-sponsored survey where the results make a compelling case for the company’s products, take the results with a grain of salt. We’re writing about this one because some of the results make a lot of sense to us. Plus, customer service is fresh on our mind having spent several hours talking to customer-service reps Saturday trying unsuccessfully to return a curtain that we were promised would match one we bought from the store earlier.

In general, 84% of those surveyed said they would spread the word about a negative customer-service experience. (We’re in that camp.) That’s up from 74% in 2007 and 67% in 2006. Eighty-seven percent said they’ve stopped doing business with an organization because of a bad experience. (We know of one store that we’re less likely to patronize again.) Conversely, 58% of those surveyed said they’re willing to pay more for a better experience.

So how do you ensure you’re treating customers in a way that they consider positive? The survey suggests keeping in perspective investments made in alternate methods of reaching customers like Internet chat, social-networking sites and even text messages sent to mobile phones. Businesses are turning to these technologies because they give them more ways to reach customers, the technologies are cool, and they often cost less than a call-center worker.

But 49% of the people surveyed say the just want quick access to a phone agent. Just 5% said they want technology tailored for their mobile devices and 4% want service through social-networking sites like Facebook. Even the percentage of people who say they want the option of communicating with an agent through instant messaging – 51%, which seems high to us – hasn’t gone up from a similar survey last year.