Monday, June 21, 2010

Complaints & Customer Service

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a pretty high level of expectation when it comes to customer service. This is not from an arrogant "I deserve it" point of view, but more from the Golden Rule of "treat others the way you want to be treated" view.

I have worked in closed office environments and also in retail. While in retail, I have had the experience of receiving customer complaints (sometimes on the verge of abusive) but I have also had the opportunity to help resolve complaints.

I recently read about this issue in a book titled "A Complaint is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong" by Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller.

Quoting the book, "In simplest terms, complaints are statements about expectations that have not been met." And this is true. But they also point out that complaints are opportunities for an organization to reconnect with customers by fixing a service or product breakdown. Customers usually have a "deeper level" need than the surface complaint. If a customer complains about having to wait on hold for 3 hours for help setting up their expensive computer, the deeper issue might be that they made a stupid purchasing decision. They call their insurance for a simple question and the call is not returned for days; at a deeper level, they are warning their agent that they are open for a new policy at renewal time.

It is a universal truth - most customers do not complain, they simply choose to take their business elsewhere.

We should all be grateful when someone has enough assertiveness to tell us the truth, and to share their perspective with us. After all, we live in a world full of people and we are surrounded by opportunities to interact and have relationships.

Let's use each opportunity wisely!