Billionaire and legendary tech innovator Bill Gates once said that unhappy customers are the ones where you can learn your greatest learning. As a business owner, your primary concern is to give excellent customer service and please all your customers but this is just not always possible. Fortunately, there is much that you can learn from your unhappy customers.
In order for you to improve your business experience and customer complaints resolution, you have to stay connected with your customers.
What Are Your Customers’ Needs
For your business to be successful, you have to base it on what your customer needs. At times, they are unhappy because they may have needs that are not fulfilled by your service or product. Customer needs are the difference between the customer’s desired state and the actual state. While your business could satisfy the needs of your customers through your product, they also deserve other things like great customer service, employees who are knowledgeable of the product, and efficient services.
How to Connect With Customers
But how will you be able to learn from unsatisfied customers? One way to do this is by connecting with them. Making use of the advances in technology like a social media account where they could give feedback and air out their concerns is very useful. Establish a connection by making sure to be easily available for feedback through online and phone surveys or even just through a business page on Facebook.
Additionally, getting a lot of customer reviews is another way to position your brand or your business as the best in the industry. People usually trust regular people’s opinions in knowing more about something that they do not know about. Customers tend to follow what their friends, family, relatives, or parents use. That is why creating a positive connection with your customers is very important.
Now that you have established a connection with your customers, you can easily learn from them, especially from unhappy ones. Here are some of the things that you can get from unhappy customers.
How Unsatisfied Customers Can Help You Improve Your Complaints Resolution?
1. You Will Know What Is Important To Them
It is important that you monitor what the customers find bad or unsatisfying about your business. It could be that something is wrong with your customer service or something is missing from your FAQ page.
Listening to the feedback will help you understand what your target market considers important. It could be a variety of choices, great product lines, customization alternatives, or excellent customer service. Additionally, allowing unsatisfied customers to tell you what they consider best for them will enable you to get a great investment return by enhancing your products or services.
2. Customer Complaints Make You See Your Flaws
Every time a customer gives your business negative feedback, consider if the customer has a point that requires you to change something in your business process. As a business owner, it is hard to admit your imperfections and be critical of your business, but doing this is very important. Unless, you are able to change your mindset, shift your perspective, and be honest about the things that you need to improve, your business will not grow. Listen to the reviews that your customers are giving and ask yourself what is missing, what is wrong, and what you need to do about it.
3. Complaints Highlight What Is Important to Your Customers
When you let customers tell you what matters to them the most, you will know exactly areas to improve on in your business and get the best return on your investment. Often, all it takes is a simple complaint from your customer to discover the weakness of your business. Most often our over-familiarity, as well as our ego, can get in the way.
4. Unhappy Customers Teach Us How To Enhance Your Customer Service
One of the reasons why customers are unhappy is the quality of customer service. Take note of your customers’ complaints and check where their complaints are heading. For example, if you notice that most of the concerns are about putting customers on hold for a long time when they are trying to report a problem, you might consider hiring additional customer service representatives. This way, more people can accommodate greater call volume.
5. Complaints Give You Insight On How To Improve Your Product
In addition to customer service, most complaints are about your product. It is possible that your product offers what the customers are expecting. While you cannot satisfy everyone, getting the most customers satisfied with your product is the ultimate goal. Checking the customer complaints and learning that they are having a hard time installing your product because of the instruction would mean clarifying the guidelines or instruction manual.
Is there a large volume of customers complaining about a component of your product that usually break? Then you can reengineer that particular part to make it more durable. Every time a customer is unhappy, it is their way of communicating with you. When this happens, get as much information as you can get. Try to get the specifics of the complaint since the more information you get, the more it will help you to improve your business.
6. It Teaches You How To Increase Your Sales
While you have the ability to hire all the marketing experts out there or use different advertising techniques, the customers are your organic marketing expert. They can directly give you honest feedback about your product or service and they can recommend your product to family and friends through word of mouth. It is through your target market that you can learn if your marketing efforts are really paying off.
7. Customer Complaints Are Much Better Than the Alternative
The only thing worse than a customer complaint is a customer leaving and never wanting to purchase your product once again and you are clueless about the reason. In a study conducted by Esteban Kolsky, a bad experience is the biggest reason why customers stopped buying from a business. Only 1 out of 26 unsatisfied customers report or complain. This simply means that not receiving negative feedback is not really an indication that your customers are truly happy.
It is possible that customers are disappointed with your business but are not vocal or expressive about it. If this is the case it simply means that you have no way of knowing and addressing the issue. It is also the reason why many successful businesses try to seek reviews and feedback from their customers to improve complaints resolution. They do it through reviews and surveys and find ways where customers can easily reach them.
8. Complaints That Seem Insignificant Are Still Useful
It may seem petty insignificant or even a customer’s flaw. However, it might still be useful to your business. Addressing a complaint is not only about the complaint but how you deal with it. Even if the customer is at fault, it is still an opportunity to build the image of your business.
Respond with empathy, professionalism, and kindness and provide an explanation to resolve misinformation or misunderstanding.
In most cases, unhappy customers would just like to be acknowledged. In research conducted by New Voice Media, the top reason why customers stop patronizing a brand or a product is that they feel unappreciated.
Conclusion
While no business likes to receive negative feedback, this is the best opportunity presented to the business to fix any issues that the business might be unaware of. Feedback should be looked at not as a negative, but as an opportunity for growth. After reading this guide, you can now focus on your customer complaints resolution and improve your business.
How can Ansafone help your business?
Ansafone Contact Centers is an award-winning BPO provider with 50 years of world-class customer experience and brand care. We are a national call center with omnichannel services, fully equipped to help you with your business and with any special circumstances.
Please request a quote or call 800-510-0514 to learn more about how you can benefit from outsourcing a call center and how we can improve your business. We’re happy to offer insight into what your customers seek from your company’s language offerings and tailored customer solutions.
