Here, Andrew McMillan, Principal at Engaging Service, addresses the issue of customer complaints and how through an organisation's culture and attitude towards customer experience they can be seen as a blessing or a curse.
We've all heard that a happy customer will tell x number of people whereas an unhappy customer will tell many more about their experience. After all, everyone loves a good story. Complaints are dangerous and can severely damage your reputation. However, it is also true that a serious complaint, resolved quickly and generously, is far more likely to create a strong advocate for your business than a customer who was completely satisfied with their experience.
That may seem counter intuitive, but if you stop to think about this, it makes perfect sense. The satisfied customer never expected anything else except to be satisfied, while the complaining customer gives you the opportunity to demonstrate how agile, caring and responsive you can be in a crisis. This has enormous capacity to build confidence and trust in the relationship. I used to see this time after time when I was responsible for the escalated complaints at John Lewis, with many of the most complimentary customer letters and emails resulting from a complaint being well handled. I'm not suggesting that you should 'engineer' a percentage of failure in your business to improve its reputation, just that complaints can be embraced rather than feared.
So, how do you create that mind-set? Those of you who have been reading the previous pieces may recall that my approach to shaping business culture starts with a definition of the behaviour that culture is to be based on. One of my favourite examples is from Ritz Carlton hotels in the US who define their customer experience as Welcome, Wanted, Remembered, Cared for. You should treat complaints in exactly the same way and, by doing that, the approach I have described over the past months can also be used to shape your complaint management.
The first step is to ensure you are very clear about your product or service and what it will and will not do. It sounds obvious, but prevention is better than cure. So many complaints I see within the various sectors I work with are as a consequence of poor customer communication at the time of the sale, sometimes due to over selling. Secondly, apologise, whether you think you are at fault or not. Businesses often seem to see an apology as an admission of failure. It isn't, you are simply apologising because the customer has become dissatisfied. An apology as a first response, irrespective of how justified you think the complaint is, can do so much to diffuse the situation at the outset.
Now you should go on to empathise with the customer. How would you feel if this happened to you? This can be an understandable challenge for frontline employees who are dealing with repeated complaint customers. However, remember this might be the first time the customer has encountered this problem and they will perceive the businesses' response on their own terms. Consequently, what really matters in this situation is what the customer, not you, considers to be fair.
That may sound harsh, but if you really want to build reputation through positive complaint handling the customer's perception of your response is more important than the reality of whether you presented a fair solution or not. And, of course, they hold all the cards as they have the option to never trade with you again and tell all their friends to avoid your business too.
Consequently, seeing this as a battle is dangerous as you will never ever win, especially with the prevalence of social media. Try googling 'complaint' and your brand and you may get a nasty surprise. If you are managing digital media well the first result you will see is the 'contact us' link to your website. If you want a couple of early and very powerful examples of the influence of social media in complaint management search for 'United Airlines broken guitar' on youtube or 'Wendi Aarons letter' on Google, both of which went viral and caused the brands much heartache.
Finally, always thank the customer for complaining. It really is free consultancy, so do something with it. I speak to so many organisations about complaints and hear people saying 'that always happens with x product or service'. There is nothing more powerful or constructive than resolving a complaint well and then telling the customer what you have immediately done to prevent recurrence. That's great for the customer relationship, great for the businesses' reputation and also great for your future profits.•
About Andrew
Organisations that spurn their most precious responsibility to create a remarkable customer experience will lose out to rivals who react proportionately to the high value they place on winning and keeping their customers. That's according to Andrew McMillan, Principal at Engaging Service, who specialises in customer experience and employee engagement. He is best known as the architect of John Lewis' customer-driven culture and now operates as a leading business consultant. In 2012 he inspired Comms Vision delegates to create massive competitive advantage by better managing staff, customer experiences and corporate branding.