The Value Of Customer Complaints - Ron Kaufman
When things go wrong, customers will complain. But if you know how to handle them, complaints can be turned into constructive opportunities for your team and your company to grow. The value of customer complaints are tenfold.Read on to discover ten ways that customer complaints can be turned on their head to be a benefit to you and your company!
Identify vital areas for service improvement.
Customer complaints highlight key areas where your product needs work, your systems need updating or your service is flagging. They can also point to staff members who need extra training, a refresher course, or closer supervision. You are only as strong as your weakest member! By observing where complaints are being focused, service levels across shifts, departments, locations and teams can be clearly seen and addressed.
Identify needed improvement in policies and procedures.
The value of customer complaints becomes very clear when you start seeing areas that need improvement in your procedures. Your company might be operating with policies and procedures that are inconvenient for your team or your customers. Or they may be unclear or simply unnecessary. Customer complaints can point to these cases.
Improve customer communication.
Simply, customer complaints open opportunities for you and your team to have frank discussions with your customers. These conversations can help customers feel like the vital components to your success that they are.
Also, complaints from customers can point out information that is lacking, erroneous or out of date.
Keep senior management informed.
Often, customer complaints can shoot straight to the top, depending on how much of the company is affected. In this way, your senior management team can quickly learn about service issues that are important to your customers and also your team. While it’s not ideal for senior management to be involved in customer complaints, it never hurts to have them occasionally involved in the day-to-day workings of the company. This allows a glimpse at what’s happening “on the ground”, and also grants them the opportunity to communicate with team members they might not normally have access to.
Improve your service education.
Customer complaints can give you valuable insight into your service education programs and how to improve them.
Complaints can be used as training models and content to educate your future team members. They provide rich information to publish for your staff members to read—with your replies, improvements and recovery action steps.
Fuel for an uplifting service culture.
If treated properly, customer complaints can be leveraged as catalysts for triggering new corporate action and positive change within the company and its systems. A more cohesive experience can be attained when everyone can understand what your customer experience. Through the sharing of customer complaints throughout your organization, everyone involved can benefit from the knowledge of what your customers are expecting.
Ignorance is bliss, while new problems and hurdles to overcome keep our humility high and teammate on their toes. Customer complaints prevent complacency. Through the act of logging and frequently reviewing customer complaints with your teammates, your organization can improve focus on its priorities, service and budget.
Find new business opportunities.
The things customers complain about may present new business opportunities for increasing revenue, reducing operational costs, solving problems and increasing value.
Obtain Competitive Intelligence
Any opportunity to delve into what the competition is doing is beneficial. Customer comments and complaints along the lines of “company ABC does this better,” means you can explore howthey do it better—a huge growth opportunity.
Customer complaints can provide you with valuable competitive intelligence, letting you know what others are doing that you are not (yet).
Better understand your customers.
What a great opportunity to get to know your customers! When customers complain, they are letting you know loud and clear what their values are, and that’s a huge edge to have in a competitive market.
Complaints let you learn which customers are willing to speak up. You can use this knowledge to invite them to participate in customer focus groups, surveys, panels, beta-tests, on-site visits and other research activities.
Build Customer Loyalty
A true test of someone’s character is how they respond when challenged. This is true for businesses as well! Customer complaints are an opportunity to shine. How you respond to customer complaints shows your true colors.
The customers who complain really care. Most upset customers simply walk away, never to be seen again. They complain about you to their friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family members, but they never let the most important person know they’re dissatisfied—you. Those who do complain, however, are giving you a chance to fix the problem and prove yourself! Even if they don’t know it themselves, a complaining customer wants you to succeed. If you can build back their trust you will have a customer for life.
Questions for Service Leaders
Do your employees realize the real value of customer complain?
How is the customer experience of an unhappy customer?