Why I Love Getting Complaints<\/h2>\n
I\u2019ve always said that it\u2019s a good thing when people complain about your product or service, because you get more value from negative feedback than you do from the good things people are saying about you.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not the only one who thinks this way. Bill Gates<\/a> famously said:<\/p>\n \u201cSuccess is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can\u2019t lose.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Complaints and criticisms give you important signals. When you hear the same feedback over and over again, that\u2019s a sign you need to make changes or else risk losing business from frustrated customers.<\/p>\n This kind of feedback is especially important if your business is young. Very few entrepreneurs start out with a perfect business model. Chances are you\u2019re going to have to evolve based on what your customers need. Complaints show you which direction to go if you want your business to be sustainable.<\/p>\n Get My Free Marketing Plan<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/b><\/p>\n Most businesses receive customer feedback in one of two ways: either it\u2019s shared proactively by customers, or it\u2019s solicited through surveys and other feedback mechanisms. To get a full understanding of your customers\u2019 challenges with your product or service, you\u2019ll need to address both.<\/p>\n Often, your most frustrated customers are going to come directly to you with their problems. All you need is a mechanism for capturing them \u2013 especially if you aren\u2019t the person who\u2019s fielding the complaints. If you have a customer service representative or team handling client care on your behalf, you\u2019ll need to work closely with them to develop a process for tracking feedback.<\/p>\n That might mean:<\/p>\n An example on the Groove blog<\/a>\u00a0shows how Trello can be repurposed to act as a repository for incoming customer requests:<\/p>\n However, your customers may also be actively sharing their complaints outside your company. For this reason, any feedback monitoring process has to also look at:<\/p>\n Google Alerts for your company\u2019s name and other branded keywords can help bring this feedback to your attention, though fully capturing external complaints will likely still require some manual effort on your part.<\/p>\n Learn More:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n You\u2019ll hear both the good and the bad from your customers, but you can also get a lot of worthwhile feedback from people who haven\u2019t purchased from you yet. That can still help you refine your product or service.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re going to turn the feedback that you capture into action \u2013 <\/b> which I\u2019ll discuss more in the next section \u2013 <\/b> you must first be able to tap into the thoughts of your broader audience. A few of my favorite resources for capturing feedback are:<\/p>\n Also, don\u2019t think of this as a one-time deal. I\u2019ll send customers an NPS score every quarter or so, which helps me to identify either upward or downward trends in customer sentiment that I might need to address.<\/p>\n Get My Free Marketing Plan<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/b><\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with what you shouldn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0do when you get a complaint.<\/p>\n No matter how upset a customer is, don\u2019t run out and promise that you\u2019ll solve the issue and make everything perfect for them. Should you apologize? Of course. Should you do everything you can within the product or service you have to make it right for them? Of course!<\/p>\n But overreacting to every piece of feedback you receive sets a dangerous precedent. What if the customer who’s upset wasn\u2019t really your target buyer in the first place? What if the features required to make them happy would be cost-prohibitive to develop (or would take your company away from your value proposition)?<\/p>\n The gray area here is why you need a defined process for evaluating the complaints you receive and determining which actions you\u2019ll take in response. Here are a few questions to ask as you build out your process:<\/p>\n Have you only ever received a single complaint about a particular aspect of your product or service? If so, that\u2019s a very different situation than one that affects multiple customers (or even a percentage of your customer base), which is why you\u2019ll want to keep tabs on how often specific issues are raised.<\/p>\n The Groove<\/a>\u00a0example shared earlier also includes a method for tracking the frequency of individual requests:<\/p>\n I hinted at this above, but you need to consider where complaints are coming from when you decide how to move forward.<\/p>\n Listen to the language that people are using when they give you feedback. Are they saying, \u201cHey, it\u2019d be cool if your product or service did X?\u201d Or is their language more intense, like, \u201cHow is it possible that your product or service doesn\u2019t do X??\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes, customers give you feedback because they want you to take their suggestions into consideration for the future. Other times, it\u2019s that they\u2019re so fed up with an underperformance issue that they\u2019re thinking about taking their business elsewhere.<\/p>\n When deciding how to move forward, you\u2019ll need to assess the seriousness of their feedback, as well as the likelihood that it\u2019ll lead to future consequences, such as cancelling subscriptions, requesting refunds or leaving negative reviews<\/a> about your brand online.<\/p>\nHow to Get Customer Feedback<\/h2>\n
Proactively Shared\u00a0Feedback<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.singlegrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Screenshot-43.png\")
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Solicited Feedback<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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What to Do with Your Customer Feedback<\/h2>\n
How many people are complaining about a given issue?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.singlegrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Screenshot-44.png\")
<\/p>\nAre the right people complaining about a given issue?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
How serious are their complaints?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"image7\"](\"https:\/\/www.singlegrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/image7.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s the impact of their complaints?<\/strong><\/h3>\n