Why a customer complaint is a gift and what you can learn from an angry or unhappy customer.

Many organizations talk about customer focus and why delighting the customer is so critical. However, in reality, the situation may be very different. What do you do, when your customer complains and is unhappy ?

13% of unhappy customers will share their complaint with 15 or more people. Only 1 in 25 unhappy customers complain directly to you. The others just stop doing business with you. A customer complaint highlights a problem, whether that's a problem with your product, service, employees or internal processes, and by hearing these problems directly from your customers, you can investigate and improve to prevent further complaints in the future. When complaints are handled quickly and efficiently, complaining customers can often be converted into loyal customers and even brand advocates.

Speed and quality of response to the complaint is critical. When a brand provides better customer service, will customers reward that brand with greater loyalty or pay a price premium ? It costs eight times more to acquire a net new customer than to cross-sell and upsell to an existing satisfied one. Social media has empowered customer feedback like no other channel before. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, the company website, review sites, customer forums, polls, etc, are just a few communication channels, customer's frequently use, to let their voice be heard. So how do you do this in a repeatable and sustainable way?

Listen and understand your customer's issue. Apologize. Find and propose a solution. Follow up with the customer to ensure they were satisfied with the solution. Last but not the least, exceed expectations. Most of the times, customers are looking to be heard, and understood with empathy. Don't ignore their feedback, good or bad. Especially when its bad. Don't rub their face in the mud and exacerbate their already troubling problems. Come with solutions not issues, by taking ownership. Don't make excuses and don't make your problem, the customers problem. Excuses are monuments of nothingness, They build bridges to nowhere, Those of us who us these tools of incompetence, Seldom become anything but nothing at all.

Almost 70% of customers leave a company because they feel you don't care about them. Research by The Nottingham School of Economics found that unhappy customers are more willing to forgive a company that offers an apology as opposed to being compensated. People will forget what you said to them, but will remember how you made them feel. Try and walk in your customer's shoes for just a few minutes and that may hep you understand where they're coming from, why they're feeling the way they are, and most importantly, what you can do to help them. You have an opportunity to making raving fans out of your customers, even the angry ones....are you doing everything possible to put a smile on their face and be an effective brand ambassador for your organization ?

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What have you and your organization done in this critical area ? Share your feedback in the comments section below. Thanks.