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» A complaint is a gift
» TMI
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A Complaint Really is a Gift.
Whilst many business leaders remain sceptical when they hear that 'a complaint is a gift' , since the concept was
popularised by Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller as the title of their 1995 book, leading organisations are now increasingly recognising
the philosophy behind the phrase, and are now leveraging complaints and 'voice of the customer' insight to retain loyal
customers and drive successful continuous improvement programmes to remove the root cause of customer dissatisfaction.
An Opportunity to Retain Loyal Customers
"95% of customers who complain will buy again if they feel that the complaint was resolved quickly.."
[Source: TARP]
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Based on research we’ve undertaken in a range of organisations across different business sectors over the years,
customers who complain tend to have a higher spend than the average customer. There could be a range of reasons for this,
but the most likely one is that higher value customers may feel that they are owed something for their custom and so,
when something goes wrong, they are more prone to raise an issue.
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At the same time, one common misconception is that complainers are always looking for financial compensation, when in fact,
anecdotal evidence tends to highlight that higher value customers are more interested in an explanation and apology, whilst
loyal customers simply wish to be recognised for letting the company know that there is a problem with their service.
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Leading organisations recognise the value of handling complaints effectively since they realise that high value, loyal
customers are their biggest source of revenue and free marketing. They also recognise that for every customer they lose
as a result of an unresolved complaint, they will need to find a brand new customer just to maintain their market share.
With the average cost of signing up a new customer between three to six times more expensive than the average cost of
satisfying a complainant, the financial argument for creating an effective complaint management system becomes very
compelling.
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"Satisfied complainants are up to 8% more loyal than customers who never experience a problem..."
[Source: TARP]
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An opportunity to use customer feedback to drive process improvement & a strategic vision which differentiates your organisation from the competition
Implementing an enterprise-wide complaint management system enables leading organisations to capture customer feedback and
complaints across all contact channels, all service propositions and all product lines. In this respect, an organisation can
capture which customer requirements and expectations they are failing to satisfy.
Whilst each customer’s feedback is addressed at source either by the first point advisor, or dedicated compliant handler,
with effective feedback coding and business analytics, the root cause of the problem can be captured and reported.
The effective analysis and reporting of complaint information can help dedicated improvement teams monitor performance and
highlight hot-spots for further root-cause analysis.
In addition, during the launch of new products or services, or during periods of change, customer feedback related to
specific propositions can be monitored across all contact-channels n order to ensure that any potential issues are quickly
flagged before the issue escalates.
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