PlusOne - Musings of a marketer

I once had dealings with a businessman who claimed his business was so good, get never got customer complaints. “You never get them, or they are never made?” I asked. The truth was, he never heard them, but they were still being made. I know, because I had heard them around town.

Customer complaints often cause many businesses to become defensive. This is because often people take the feedback personally. So how do we change this and start to recognise them for what they are - a gift.

The first step is to ensure everyone in the business hierarchy starts playing the ball and not the player. Huh? Let me explain. Generally - all to often in fact, the finger is pointed at an individual who’s ‘fault’ it is. That is playing the player. The ball on the other hand, it the situation, be it customer service was slow, the wrong part shipped, etc. What a business needs to be doing is focussing on the situation, the problem. The resolution of the problem may be to ensure that staff are properly trained, adequately resourced or that a function is not understaffed.

So back to customer complaints. Complaints provide you with the opportunity to identify problems from the customer’s viewpoint. And because none of us can survive without customers, that is the most important viewpoint!

Leading businesses put into place systems that allow customers to provide ‘feedback’ (a much more digestible term!) so problem areas can be resolved. These can be as simple as feedback forms on a counter, follow-up phone calls, or even verbal ‘was everything to your satisfaction.

If a customer says that some component of your business is not working for them, despite your ideas to the contrary, believe them, but find out why they think that way and find and fix the ‘ball’.

I welcome your comments on this topic.

PlusOne deals with customer complaints in our Customer Focus Workshops.