The comparison between unhappy and happy customers and how many customers they bring or how much you can lose should show anyone interested in growing their business how important good customer service is. Great article Jens!
Glad to hear that the customer experience topic resonates also from a Growth perspective!
A related next question to look into might be: To grow even faster, do we double-down on making the unhappy ones less unhappy, or focus our efforts on making the happy ones even happier, or how should we split our efforts and resources across these customer categories?
Hi Jens, wonderful article on the VALUE of customer complaints. You’re right, most companies want to avoid complaints, but they can be a goldmine of information.
Here is an interesting takeaway: The quality of the complaint varies based on how often a company proactively engages its customers. In essence, more satisfied customers give ‘better’ complaints.
A typical customer might say “I hate your new laptop, it doesn’t work for me at all!” Well that’s not very useful feedback for the company. But a happy and satisfied customer will leave the same feedback, then add why they don’t like the laptop, and what changes the company should make to improve how it performs for them.
Which is far more valuable feedback for the company. And another reason why companies should invest in engaging with their customers and creating advocates. Advocates/fans/evangelists view themselves as brand owners, so when they give feedback/complaints, they will also include instructions on HOW TO IMPROVE, because they want to see the brand succeed.
I hope your readers will take your smart advice to heart and think about how they can better leverage customer complaints to grow!
Thanks for the great feedback Mack! Everything you added there makes really good business sense. There is lots of value to unlock by listening carefully to your biggest customer fans and getting onboard with their customer needs and wants.
Thanks Bette, also just to add that complaints usually have a lot of negative energy in it and social media platforms thrive on user-generated content with strong emotions. It's the perfect storm hence why companies need to be on the front-foot and proactively drive customer experience and good service.
The comparison between unhappy and happy customers and how many customers they bring or how much you can lose should show anyone interested in growing their business how important good customer service is. Great article Jens!
Glad to hear that the customer experience topic resonates also from a Growth perspective!
A related next question to look into might be: To grow even faster, do we double-down on making the unhappy ones less unhappy, or focus our efforts on making the happy ones even happier, or how should we split our efforts and resources across these customer categories?
This is one to cover in future post.
Good insight 😌 Can i translate part of this article into Spanish with links to you and a description of your newsletter?
Agreed, and thank you for spreading the word about my publication!
Hi Jens, wonderful article on the VALUE of customer complaints. You’re right, most companies want to avoid complaints, but they can be a goldmine of information.
Here is an interesting takeaway: The quality of the complaint varies based on how often a company proactively engages its customers. In essence, more satisfied customers give ‘better’ complaints.
A typical customer might say “I hate your new laptop, it doesn’t work for me at all!” Well that’s not very useful feedback for the company. But a happy and satisfied customer will leave the same feedback, then add why they don’t like the laptop, and what changes the company should make to improve how it performs for them.
Which is far more valuable feedback for the company. And another reason why companies should invest in engaging with their customers and creating advocates. Advocates/fans/evangelists view themselves as brand owners, so when they give feedback/complaints, they will also include instructions on HOW TO IMPROVE, because they want to see the brand succeed.
I hope your readers will take your smart advice to heart and think about how they can better leverage customer complaints to grow!
Thanks for the great feedback Mack! Everything you added there makes really good business sense. There is lots of value to unlock by listening carefully to your biggest customer fans and getting onboard with their customer needs and wants.
My guess is given technology now, those complaints spread and multiply faster than the gremlins did! Love the intro by the way.
Thanks Bette, also just to add that complaints usually have a lot of negative energy in it and social media platforms thrive on user-generated content with strong emotions. It's the perfect storm hence why companies need to be on the front-foot and proactively drive customer experience and good service.
That is true and with social media - good luck containing that!