We know that most dissatisfied customers do not express their complaints. This may be good news for some organizations that receive customer complaints as a nuisance …
But if your organization has proposed to improve the quality of their service, with a goal of excellence, the absence of complaints is a serious problem.
Customer complaints are a fabulous tool to manage quality of service, because without requiring any proactive investigation by the company (which tend to be expensive), we mark major areas for improvement.
If only’ll have the historical information on claims of your customers, you have an excellent base to set your priorities for improvement. The serious problem is that most dissatisfied customers do not complain.
Complaints are the tip of an iceberg
The Technical Assistance Research Programs (TARP), an entity of the US internationally renowned for the accuracy of his research, he has found that for every complaint received from a client, there is an average of 26 people with six of which are often severe. Hence the complaints expressed are the tip of a large iceberg, is not it?
What will those who are suffering serious problems as many of your customers, and do not express them? It would be so useful to know … not just to avoid losing them as customers, but also to take measures to prevent the same problems in many others. But here’s the key: there are complaints that deserve them. And how? Giving customers good reasons to express them.
But let’s see why, if those customers are so upset, do not say?
4 common reasons that inhibit customer complaint
- The customer is resigned, and has no hope that his claim to achieve change things. Unfortunately experience shows that most of the time, express our claim is useless. We’re resigned as users, and do not want to get into a problem to no avail. If we have no choice of supplier, we will change without saying anything.
- The client does not plan to use again the same service. Occasional customers are less likely to claim, because they will not enjoy the improvements that, in the best case, can help implement. For this reason, they do not want to waste their time and energy to express their grievances.
- Complaints are not encouraged. Despite the great benefits of knowing the true opinions of customers (including complaints and claims), most organizations do not like to receive them. They see it as a blow to pride, or as a threat to working people providing the service, and therefore do not encourage the client to express. When a client seeks to make a claim, if you are not very handy means to do so, he weighted his annoyance against the expected benefit and win inaction.
- It is an annoying process, involving losses for the customer. Most receiving complaints processes are very unfriendly to the customer. You should call several times, wasting their time and money, explain your problem to different people, with the feeling of being “working for” the organization, which should address proactively to know and solve your problem.
How merit customer complaints
For the above reasons, to earn valuable customer complaints, we must:
- Customer give hope that your complaint will be fruitful and will represent the end, a profit. A very effective way is to demonstrate how they have acted to complaints from other customers.
A few days ago I read an article where a hotel manager told that by submitting your satisfaction surveys to customers, they told what they had done with a previous complaint from another customer, demonstrating the improvements implemented. They are irrefutable evidence. If today the customer enjoys the benefits of the complaint from another customer, it is a great incentive to express itself.
- Customer facilitate the claim process. Any employee should be able to receive a claim, and if necessary, refer you to the appropriate himself. Not pass to the customer as hot potato from stall to stall, so he finds the right person. If a customer had the urge to claim, the doors should be opened wide to receive this valuable information.
Take the claim and proactively follow, and in the process let the customer know their status. This will give you assurance that your claim was taken into account and is being managed effectively. It is usually helpful to have one person be responsible of the claim from the beginning to the end, but must pass through different hands, to ensure that come to fruition, and not be stuck on the road, or dropped into a transfer of hands, or I mislaid.
- The same study TARP tells us that 92% of customers who complain and the complaint has been satisfactorily resolved the first time, again do business with the company. It is worth knowing and effectively solve customer problems!