The Rise of Customer Complaints and How They are Beneficial to Your Company
Customer complaints have been perceived, for too long, as a burden for a company, when in reality it should be seen as a benefit. By grasping the value of complaints, this in effect will improve your products and services open market value, but also increases your company’s efficiency overall.
To meet the demands of the public and be competitive, every company has to be customer centered.
Developing a customer support plan will assist a company to better understand customers’ complaints and thus improve the value proposition and enhance customers’ experience.
A strong and responsible business will realize the benefit of a customer’s complaint, recognizing the significance of the complaint and, in the process, gain access into the thought process of the consumer.
The optimum manner to maximize your company’s growth is by understanding what your customer complaints are and managing this information as constructive data to develop your company’s customer service policy and to improve your company’s offerings.
In this article, we will discuss in-depth the impact of customer complaints and how companies can make good use of this information.
What exactly is a customer complaint?
In basic terms, a customer complaint can be described as the difference between what a company delivers in their products or services and what the customer expects. To further explain, it is the misalignment between how the customer views the product/service and what the customer ultimately ends up with.
Customer complaints vary and can be characterized as 1) communication failure, 2) internal order mix-up, or 3) poor service delivery. Many companies will realize that a complaint is a unique opportunity to understand the core problem and to turn a bad encounter into a useful insight for constructive policy adjustments. The key to resolution is to investigate each customer complaint.
In the end, a company should welcome customers’ complaints and honest feedback. This helps the business owner to better grasp on the difficulties customers encounter when accessing their products and services. In the end, complaints must be seen as a positive since they present a variety of unforeseen chances for learning and adapting.
The unforeseen advantages of customer complaints
Understanding the importance of customer complaints is a valuable step in moving your business to the next level. Processing complaints with dexterity and knowledge gives your organization a useful tool to progress.
Useful benefits of customer complaints:
- Customer complaints offer an insight into the capability of your sales and service staff and how these can be improved. This experience can later be utilized to train new staff.
- Complaints underscore crucial points where your company’s products and services require upgrading.
- Customer complaints provide valuable learning experiences for your staff to obtain feedback from your customers in what is wrong with their buying experience.
What is the significance of customer complaints to your company?
First and foremost, complaints offer you real-time information into your customer’s thought process. This is a low-buck way of carrying out customer experience surveys. Complaints are real-life responses your company can analyze and integrate those changes. Recognizing the significance of complaints allows the company to assess business practices simply and easy.
Customer complaints are important for a number of reasons, let us review.
- Customer complaints are a wake-up call for your company
Quite simply, according to New Voice Media statistics – “51% of customers will never do business with that company again after one negative experience.”
Give customer complaints the attention they require. Companies without identified goals and objectives can use customer complaints to define ways to get the company to develop their aims. This review serves as an existential assessment for the company and assists them in developing future strategic aims for company growth.
Giving the customer complaints the importance they deserve aids the company to enhance their internal practices, conversely, improving the customer service delivery.
How do customer complaints improve your company’s offering?
- It gives you vision into the customer’s experience for your product or service.
- Assists in spotting the gaps in your sales processes.
- Discover those attributes of your product and service delivery and how it can be improved.
Addressing customer complaints on a consistent level assists a company to provide a regular delivery service and makes a company responsible to fix them.
- Getting clearer insight into customer needs
Getting insight into customer needs is a crucial task of every company. The deeper and thorough understanding of your customers you have, the greater chances your sales and marketing will obtain desired impact.
Comprehending customers’ needs is crucial for a number of purposes:
- The simpler your company makes the buying process for your customers; the more likely your customer will stick with your product or service compared to others.
- Get an understanding on who your customer is, what they are looking for and gain insight into what they think of your company so to craft a marketing message which will satisfy their needs.
- Understand their thought processes and leverage this information to better your brand.
- Real-time reaction to your products and services
A customer’s unhappy experience with your product and services may not get back to you, but most likely they will tell their friends and family. Getting this customer feedback allows for companies develop their brand even more. Having your customers complain is a simple manner for getting their honest opinion. This is why complaining should be positively perceived.
Listed following are main arguments customer complaints or opinions are best for your company:
- Customers feel appreciated when your company listens to them – Addressing feedback from your customers shows you appreciate their honest opinions and that you value each one of them. The customers attach a positive association to your product and service if they think you are listening to them.
- Complaints can be an opportunity to managing your brand – When your customers send back a negative review; this should be viewed as an opportunity. If they contact you about the negative encounter, demanding you to fix it, your full attention is to the response.
- Honest feedback breeds recommendations – Studies have shown that recommendations from family, friends or a notable VIP have even more emphasis.
- Directs attention to features that require further improvement – It is essential to grasp what is best for your customers. Honest feedback lets you know if your brand is meeting their expectations and needs. When your customer sees their feedback is valued, your product and services is raised in their eyes.
- Controlling your reputation online
Online reviews influence the purchase of your brand more than you think. Consumers give more significance to your online reputation and posted reviews. These reviews posted online by consumers in the end affects purchasing of your product.
Your products and services online reputation is not about eliminating negative reviews and complaints posted online, it is about constantly being vigilant, addressing the negative reviews and maintaining customer satisfaction simultaneously.
Suggestions to cultivate your reputation online:
- Responding to customers in a sincere manner will calm down the situation and keep a customer.
- Take the high road when dealing with reviews.
- Address online reviews as soon as they appear.
- Always keep a positive tone when responding to customers.
- The previous points will gain traction into realizing your product and services’ performance and identify your market better.
Below is an example of an bad online review from Trip Advisor. If you were the owner of this small hotel in Greece, how would you respond? Was this your fault or a bad customer? By reading and responding to bad online reviews, you are able to learn where you went wrong and are able to diffuse the situation.
Misa L wrote a review July 2019
1 contribution 1 helpful vote
Unwelcome….wanted my money but not me
I’ve been traveling through Greece for weeks and stayed in many B & Bs.
MY HOST (name withheld) was unwelcoming, unaccommodating and rude.
I asked for cream for coffee I had brought and was told to go to the market, which I had no idea how to find. I asked if I could pay for cream and she waved her hand and said go. I highly recommend you pay a little more for a hospitable environment. There is nothing worse than feeling like you are a burden as you pay your bill. Don’t stay here unless you’re looking forward to feeling unwelcome. It is not worth the little bit of savings you might realize. Minus 5 stars! Horrible service, rude staff and unhelpful attitude.”
Date of stay: July 2019 Trip type: Travelled with family.
Responding to bad reviews of a dissatisfied customer in quick fashion will mollify the customer and any other potential customers reading the reviews, evaluating your ability to deal with difficult cases.
Learning points:
- Dealing with a difficult customer that has a right to complain about bad service. After you’ve fixed the issue with the offended customer, offering to compensate in some way for their loss can bring them back.
- Address bad customer reviews as soon as possible to stop spreading of worse references.
- Monitor your product and services reviews online vigilantly to grasp how customers are writing about you.
- Enhancing your customer support mechanisms
Customers complain a lot, but why?
This could be owed to a delayed response system and a company’s customer services or interactive systems which are inadequate to respond.
In some cases, customers complain because the perception of the product or service does not match up to what was marketed. Your sales and marketing department may not have the right set of skills, your processes are not up to par or your staff simply does not have the means to deal with the complaint.
Moreover, if you cannot address communication in a timely fashion and efficiently, then there are other means at your disposal:
- Chatbots – Automating your sales and marketing functions with chatbots will allow you to interact with customers 24 hours a day. The instant feedback offers personal experience for the customer.
- Real-time engagement tools – Solutions such as open-browsing and video calls assist in communicating with customers in real-time to address customer issues quickly and better line up effective solutions.
- Live chat – Your company can use live chat to give customers instant assistance to their issues with your product or services. This form can be tricky in that call chat agents need to be trained on how to diffuse difficult customer situations.
Chat agents are at the forefront of customer confrontation. Because of this, agents may not have the proper skills to address difficult customers. Your company needs to give additional training on products, services and solutions. This in turn will improve the agent’s skills to resolve customer’s problems more efficiently.
- Improving communication with the customer
Studies suggest that 70% of the customer experience is controlled by how the customer views the company that is handling them. Most times, customers start buying other brands after an unpleasant sales support experience. Addressing the customer’s expectations is crucial to working out complaints.
As noted, a number of times in this article, customer complaints are a golden opportunity to improve your company’s products, services and processes. A customer feels they are valued after they see they are being genuinely listened to and their feedback taken for discussion. In the end, they just want to be listened to.
Good advice for dealing with customer complaints:
- Listen to what they are saying – Take credence in what your customers are saying. Most time you have to realize the reason why they are complaining. Customers want quick feedback from your organization and listening to their problems with a resolution is part of this.
- Identifying a mutual solution – Give your customer support staff full backing to respond to complaints so as to avoid the customer wanting to “speak to your manager”.
- Post-solution follow-up – After agreeing with the customer a solution to their complaint, follow-up with the customer to ensure satisfaction with the resolution. This after-care shows you value their patronage.
- Meeting or surpassing customer demands – Meeting or surpassing customer demands is a great opportunity for your company. You can respond with a valued customer thank you note or provide details on new products, services or features that are coming out.
- Customer apologies – Diffusing a bad situation with an apology can go a long way. Saying you’re sorry for slip ups, acknowledging their complaint or resolving quickly means a lot.
- Quietly building return customers
The motto of many a company – Our greatest asset is our customers. Treat each customer if they are our only one.
Every complaint significantly affects companies. Positive or negative, a product or service is affected by it. A happy customer shares their experience with a few friends and family, a dissatisfied customer can get on the internet and broadcast the bad experience with hundreds and thousands of strangers.
Addressing negative comments is crucial, but customer complaints are another story.
- Let the customer know you are aware of the problem and are in the process of finding a solution.
- Give the customer a projected time to review the issue and follow-up plan.
- After satisfying the customer, please request them to provide positive feedback through a company form or online.
A well-developed company response plan to handling customer complaints in a timely fashion can let your customers feel they are valued. Customer complaints are a make-or-break activity for a company. By doing it well and with effectiveness, it ultimately retains customer loyalty in the end.
Handling customer complaints is essential to a company
Customer complaints have been perceived for too long as a burden for a company, when in reality it should be seen as a benefit. Soliciting complaints should be promoted by a company as these can be seen as learning tools which can have an enormous positive or negative effects on a company. By grasping the value of complaints, this in effect will improve your products and services open market value, but also increases your staff’s efficiency overall.