The idea for this post came from two questions I have wondered about for some time. ‘As a customer is it more effective to get angry and upset when you receive ‘bad’ customer service or just stay calm and simply explain the situation in a mature way?’ and ‘Have businesses created an aggressive customer feedback culture by generally only ‘rewarding’ angry and upset behavior? Most businesses, from Multinational Corporations to the mum and dad corner stores seem to handle different styles of feedback (in my opinion) in a counter intuitive way.
First off, all businesses should train or talk to their front line staff about their “Customer Feedback Strategy” (CFS). The area I think businesses fall down in their CFS with regards to the above questions is their handling of a ‘Friendly Customer Complaint’, the FCC. All staff should be trained to recognize and effectively handle the all important FCC. To start I’ll define the standard FCC customer. These are people who understand that mistakes happen, that no business is perfect. They aren’t initially angry and they don’t yell at staff or write to the newspaper. But bet your future profits if you don’t value their feedback and satisfy them in your response they probably won’t come back, but most importantly if they do come back they will not give your business the opportunity of another FCC.
The biggest problem is that most staff and many managers handle FCC’s with the relaxed approach of “Thank god they are not angry, that was a close one!” Believing it’s a positive that their boss will not have to be called for, or hopefully even told about the incident that caused the FCC. Some managers/owners even have policies that don’t refund, discount, or give complimentary anything unless the customer make a ‘serious’ complaint which generally has to be an angry one that lasts for over ten minutes. A thing these staff and managers should recognize for their own benefit is that a decent percentage of FCC’s when handled in an inappropriate way will turn into an ‘Angry Customer Compliant’ the ACC, which WILL end up going to their boss. In support of most frontline staff many management teams do not culturally put a value on the FCC which is ultimately a great form of free constructive feedback and then in turn they fail to maximize the FCC value by haveing a deliberate and consistent approached to their CFS.
It does not make sense!
Effectively most businesses encourage the ACC, but sweeps the FCC under the metaphoric rug. Frontline staff needs to be effective at mining the FCC for the nuggets of gold they can provide, managers then must have systems that can trial, test, and then implement the advice if appropriate. But ultimately the information will stop with the front line staff if owners and managers don’t reward staff for reporting the FCC to them.
I truly believe when businesses don’t handle the FCC appropriately they are missing out on an opportunity of converting customers to loyal fans, they are missing out on a source of valuable feedback, they are encouraging a culture of ACC at their business and missing out on the opportunity to populate their customer base with the best type of customers….
Those that are already happy to begin with!
I have broken down the steps below to what are in my opinion the most important points management and staff need to cover when handling the FCC.
- Instantly correct or explain the problem that caused the issue.
- Listen to the feedback and thank them for the information.
- Explain back to them what you understood the problem to be.
- Offer possible solution or corrective action based on their experience moving forward.
- If possible make sure the person responsible is included. EVEN if it is the head chef.
- If suitable, incentivize them to come back again to get an ‘unspoiled experience’.
- Give the ‘boss’’ contact details “Please let us know how your next experience is”.
- At the end of the experience thank them again for the feedback.
- Write up and pass on the details of the incident, solution, action, and outcome” to the CFS manager.
You don’t always need to give something away, think outside the box. If you do give something away though try not to think of it as a cost but a marketing investment. The most important thing is to ensure the customer feels you have valued their feedback, you regret the incident happened and they feel heard.
Like my Dad would tell me when I was young “If you are getting regular response from more than one person, maybe it’s YOU and not THEM? You know what; my Dad was right and maybe so are your customers.
Cheers
Josh Mackey
Passionate about creating, communicating, and executing great customer experiences.
You can contact me at josh@betteryetventures.com
and I don’t get it) I would be instantly excluded from a majority of job opportunities. (I am not education bashing I want to get my MBA soon). In fairness, with the amount of people applying to jobs it’s hard not to blame HR for culling applicants based on certain selected points. Even as a CEO of my own start up, with my business management experience and great references I would not get a look in.
