You don’t get many customer complaints do you? Everything must be ok mustn’t it? Well, don’t bank on that!.
According to a report by Rapide, 91% of customers don’t always complain when they receive poor customer service with over 40% of them thinking it is not worth complaining as companies simply don’t care!
In other words, just because you’re not getting complaints that doesn’t mean you haven’t got a problem! Customers may be unhappy, but they might not be telling you! (You can be sure, by the way, that they are telling other people!)
In fact, I would suggest that really customer focussed get more complaints! Why? Because they look and ask for them! Crucially, they empower their people to respond and do something with them! (A good example is O2 on Twitter after their ‘service down’ problem a couple of months agao!)
This bit is critical – Rapide’s research revealed that 81% of customers would be more likely to give feedback if they knew there would be an instant response!
I’d suggest therefore, that getting more complaints can be a good thing – provided you’re people are equipped to deal with them! It’s better to know than not!
So, why not ask your customers (or get your people to ask them) what they think?
A great question is ‘Are You COMPLETELY Happy’? (Yes / No answer only please!) and then follow this up with ‘WHY / WHY NOT?
Do ensure that your people are equipped with the resources and skills to ‘Deal With Disappointment’. Raising customer expectations by asking their opinion and then not being able to deal with it is likely to create more ‘Disappointment’!
It’s worth pointing out that it’s not all bad news! There is a positive to this – The research also demonstrated that, on the flipside, some businesses could be missing out on POSITIVE customer feedback – only 27% of customers said they either always or often feedback when they’ve had great customer service!
Go on…. Get Asking, Get Listening and Get Doing Something as a result!
