Customer complaints? More please!
posted by: Nick Roman on 5/28/2010
Customer complaints are brilliant. No, really. I appreciate that when you’re on the phone receiving an ear-bashing from an unhappy customer who doesn’t appreciate that it’s not personally your fault that your company screwed up, it’s pretty hard to remember that complaints are brilliant. But trust me. Have a coffee and reflect for a moment. See? Brilliant.
They’re brilliant because they provide opportunities. At a one-to-one level, they give you the opportunity to make an unhappy customer happy again. And then word of mouth kicks in and not only are they happier, but they’re telling people how you made them happy. That’s a good start. From a longer-term perspective, it can help you to identify the ways in which your company can make things better. What was the process that caused the customer to be unhappy? Was it a one-off, or can you tweak the process and prevent similar situations in the future?
The brilliance is certainly not being recognized everywhere though. It seems that many UK banks are failing to capitalize on the opportunity. The UK banking watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, is investigating the way that banks handle customer complaints, and as of this month, new rules require firms to publish their complaints data. Ouch. Nowhere to hide any more. Incentive plans that aren’t designed to encourage staff to effectively handle complaints are identified as one problem. Still, it’s hardly the first time that banking has suffered for incentivizing the wrong sort of behavior…
Another failing that the FSA has identified is the lack of senior management engagement in the complaints process. This really does make a difference. I’m not suggesting that board members should be manning the phones in the call center (though that might not be the worst idea actually, just for an hour), but a focus on customers must come from the top, and complaints are the obvious place to start. If a customer has made the effort to engage with your business, even if it’s because they’re not happy, it’s ridiculous to do anything other than take the opportunity and run with it.
It’ll be interesting to see what the publication of complaints data brings in August.