As I wrote about in Part One of this mini series, customer complaints can be great opportunities for you and your team to learn and grow.
As promised, here are five more reasons why you should look at customer complaints as a good thing.
6. 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 customers 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.
7. 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.
8. 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).
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9. 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 valuesare, 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.
10. 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.
I hope this blog has been helpful and has you looking forward to your next customer complaint!
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This post has been updated from a previously published version.
