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“We are quieter and more polite as a culture,” said Berkeley Warburton, Toronto-based managing director of advanced customer strategy at Accenture, on Monday. “We might quietly sip away at that corked bottle of wine without saying anything. Our friends south of the border would be more likely to send it back. What we do is just never go back to that restaurant.”

Accenture also found that after Canadians have a bad experience related to the marketing and sales practices of a company, only 18 per cent of them posted negative comments online, compared with a global average of 30 per cent.

The findings seem to contradict the marketing industry maxim that people are more likely to offer words of complaint online than they are to offer praise.

In general, Canadians seem to be more reluctant to share their feelings, whether they be positive or negative, about their interactions with a company: 71 per cent of us never write anything on social media sites about company products, customer service deliveries or personal experiences with companies, versus 50 per cent globally who do not post such information.

In addition to being reluctant complainers, Canadians also appear to expect better customer service than their global counterparts.

The bulk of your unhappy customers are not complaining to you, they are just silently switching.

“We are very digital and engaged customers (and) have very high expectations about customer experiences, and we will just quietly slip away,” if those are not fulfilled, Warburton said.