 Track
Each Complaint Until Your Customer Comes Back
When
you respond to a customer complaint, what do you hope
will happen next? In many cases, the answer is ‘nothing’.
But when you reply and the result is silence, have you
genuinely resolved the issue? Is your customer truly
satisfied? Or have they simply gone quiet, and maybe
gone away?
If you’re making a sincere effort to respond to
customer complaints, then make sure you also track complaining
customers until you are absolutely sure they
have come back.
If you run a restaurant, make sure they come back for
dinner. If you work in travel, be sure they come back
on board. If you’re in a bank, check they’re
still using their credit cards. If not, your recovery
effort remains incomplete.
My friend Steven Howard puts it this way: ‘A customer
is not a customer until she buys from you the second
time. The first time she is only a “trial user”.
The second time she becomes a “customer”.
The third time she qualifies as a “repeat customer”
and, over time, may become truly loyal.’
Key Learning Point
Complaining customers
are more active and vocal than most. Your response should
not shut them up, it should win them back.
Action Steps
Start tracking the
return and repeat purchases of your complaining customers.
If they come back and patronize you again, you are on
the road to great reward. If they go away and don't return,
your `complaint reply system' is not working as it should.
Follow up with complaining customers who do not return.
Find out what you could have done, or should have done,
to truly recover their business. Then implement their
suggestions - and keep on tracking.
Next Article in Customer Service Measurements >>
Why Quality Assurance is Not Enough
First Article in Customer Service Mindset >>
Leave This Place Better Than You Found It
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Ron Kaufman is an internationally acclaimed customer service training educator for quality service.
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