CHICAGO (CBS) – A new survey serves as a warning to businesses about letting customer service – or their products – slip.

A survey by the Better Business Bureau found 30 percent of customers never go back to a business that has treated them improperly, or provided a faulty product. And only 28 percent of unhappy customers would complain directly to the business, either via email or phone.

Twenty-two percent of customers would go to an online review site and rip the business, while 20 percent would pass along their bad reviews via word-of-mouth.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports

Better Business Bureau president & CEO Steve Bernas said businesses need to remember that they only have “one chance to make a lasting impression, and you don’t want that to be the last impression, because they’ll find somebody else … who they’ll shop and buy from. and it hurts you financially.”

Bernas said businesses need to treat their customers as valuable resources.

“The wakeup call to businesses [is] that they need to take care of their customer services, and make the consumers happy, because if you don’t do it, somebody else will,” he said.

Bernas said, when businesses cut back in hard times, customer service is usually one of the areas that suffer. But he said businesses can’t afford to do that and continue performing well.