For every customer who complains, 26 others stay silent
Unsourced Confidence: medium
No primary data found; the trail ends in a roundup, a disowned quote or a circular citation.
- Commonly cited as
- "Only 1 in 26 unhappy customers complains" (Lee Resource / TARP)
- True origin
- None found — attributed to 'Lee Resource Inc' or 'TARP Research 1999' — Customer-service fact lists
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- Undated (claimed 1999 or earlier)
- Data as of
- Attributed to sources from 1999 or earlier; no dated document found
- Last checked
- What the source says
For every customer who bothers to complain, 26 other customers remain silent. Source: Lee Resource Inc
- Method & sample
- None we could find: fact lists cite Lee Resource Inc or a 1999 TARP study without a title, sample or link.
- Drift between quote and source
- Attribution: two different claimed origins, neither with a findable document
- Interest
- n/a
Safe rephrasing
Most dissatisfied customers never complain, so complaint counts understate problems; the exact '1 in 26' ratio has no findable study behind it.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/26-unhappy-customers-dont-complain.json · Last checked 2026-10-16