Complaints and compliments are an essential part of a business. There is always room for improvement and there is always a need to recognise the moments that necessitate repetition.

When it comes to complaints vs. compliments, there should always be a balance. You should start to worry if you’re not receiving either, as this could mean you’re operating something average.

If everything is average about your business, customers will be less inclined to complain or compliment because nothing in the customer journey irritates or impresses them enough to take the time to say something.

Many businesses like to receive complaints, because it’s a way to improve customer service and help develop their staff. The same applies to compliments, it’s a great way to learn what impresses customers and to make sure your business keeps doing just that.

There are various ways you can learn more about the customer process and how to find the stages or the single moment that leads to critical mass i.e. the need to complain or leave.

Market research offers options such as mystery shopping to view the customer experience through the eyes of the consumer, from entering a business, the aesthetics of the location, interacting with staff and transacting.

Customer surveys are also an effective tool for learning more about how a customer thinks each stage of the customer journey can be improved or which parts impressed them the most.

No matter how well your business is doing, there is always room for improvement and there are many opportunities to create an experience and learn more about your customers.

Article by: Mike Metelerkamp of www.clandestine.co.za. Clandestine Marketing is a market research company in Cape Town that specialised in mystery shopping and consumer insights.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) presented its 2008/ 2009 Annual Report in parliament last week, identifying which service providers have received the most complaints.

According to an article on MyBroadband, ICASA processed a total of 2 155 complaints over the last year. Telkom received the largest proportion of these complaints (21%), Cell C and Vodacom came tie second (19% each), followed closely by MTN (18%).

Are these results are an accurate reflection on these service providers’ approach to customer service? Let’s use Cell C as an example: despite receiving a significant proportion of the complaints processed by ICASA, Cell C is the top rated cell phone service provider in the getclosure ratings, with an overall rating of two and a half stars (out of a total of five stars).

So what are we getting at here? In order to improve service levels, suppliers need to know when they have dropped the ball. So instead of judging them by how many complaints they have received, let’s focus on how they respond to complaints, and how satisfied their customers are with the outcome of their complaints.

Click here to read the full article on www.getclosure.co.za

Guest post by Marcel Oudejans

With advent of virtually instant global communication, the consumer is gaining an advantage: the ability to make an informed decision based not just on the seller’s sales methods but also on previous customers’ experiences. Customers are learning that they have rights and that they can support or reject a supplier with their Rands. While much has been said about the new Consumer Protection Act, it does not necessarily prevent or regulate the typical apathy or neglect that may not be illegal but does cause frustration. However, disgruntled customers now have far greater access to tools that can help them get satisfaction from their disappointing experiences.

In the past, companies that were not delivering on their promises or delivering satisfactory service could be confident that, for the most part, an unhappy customer would be unlikely to cause significant damage to their brand. However, the massive growth of “self-publication” tools – such as blogging and Twitter – means that individuals have increased their leverage by being able to persuade or dissuade potential customers from doing business with a particular company. This means that companies must seriously evaluate their customer service standards, since negative PR from a single dissatisfied customer has a far higher potential to impact their bottom line profits than ever before.

A customer’s experience, from entering your company to long after the sale has been made, must therefore be consistently positive. Major companies have known this for years and have also been pro-active in this regard by creating “customer service” departments, and, by creating a dedicated channel for unhappy customers to voice their grievances, the company can make improvements based on peoples’ experiences. Customer Services department staff are trained how to handle an upset customer; but it’s frequently the case that this specialized department only deals with people unhappy enough to make a formal complaint. In fact, it’s far easier and more likely that customers tell their ‘friends’ using a tool like Facebook about their experience of dealing with your company.

But is there a future for “customer service” departments? It’s doubtful that this department will simply cease to exist in the future. My suggestion is that the customer service departments facilitate training of all staff members of the company. This way it would be possible for the entire staff complement to learn from an in-house department on what is considered good customer service.

In the future, customers will expect even higher levels of service, because they have more choice and influence. It is therefore vital that every person in your company should be consistent and reliable in offering better-than-standard service. This means that every staff member will need to be a part of the “customer service department”, regardless of which department they have been assigned to. As customers exercise their buying “power”, the responsibility to deliver good service will no longer simply rest solely with the customer service department: rather, we can (and should) expect that ALL staff are ready and prepared to offer great service. I expect that we will see a shift from a single dedicated service department, to a department that trains and monitors service levels for all staff members. This is definitely good news for consumers!

Marcel Oudejans is a Corporate Infotainer who is passionate about inspiring his audiences to deliver more “magic moments” to their customers in their customer service, sales & marketing. Marcel is the author of “The Serious Business Owner’s Guide To Creating Customers For Life” & provides more tricks, techniques & strategies on his blog, http://www.performmarketing.co.za

Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.

Say less.

Listen more.

It’s been said that the reason we have 2 ears and 1 mouth is to remind us to listen twice as much as we talk.

Frequently, an angry or disappointed customer simply wants to feel that she is important enough to be listened to: while this may not necessarily solve the problem, it certainly goes a long way towards resolving the issue and possibly retaining the customer. Too often our ego and our pride cause the need to interrupt and explain the situation. While giving an explanation is important, the highest priority should be to listen to the customer first.

In my personal experience, a customer ‘complaint’ is often a great opportunity – it exposes a weakness in your company’s processes. Allow the customer to explain the situation from her point of view, avoid interrupting, and acknowledge that you are listening attentively. Try to take notes, even if the complaint initially sounds unreasonable. Eventually the customer will calm down and almost inevitably explain how the situation can be resolved. You’ll find that having the patience to listen will improve your ability to respond in an effective manner.

Advances in technology have resulted in a myriad of ways that we can communicate and listen to our customers. By actively listening to compliments and complaints, we improve and adjust our service and product offerings to our customers. The popularity of consumer advocate websites, and complaint drivers like getclosure!, can be attributed to our customers’ basic desire to voice their opinions. However, this should never be seen as a replacement to personally engaging customers in a discussion, asking questions and listening.

Your customers want to be heard – are you giving them the opportunity to be listened to?

Marcel Oudejans is a Corporate Infotainer who is passionate about inspiring his audiences to deliver more “magic moments” to their customers in their customer service, sales & marketing. Marcel is the author of “The Serious Business Owner’s Guide To Creating Customers For Life” & provides more tricks, techniques & strategies on his blog, http://www.performmarketing.co.za

Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.

It’s in our nature to become defensive when we’re criticized – who likes to be told that their work is not up to standard or that they have not met someone’s expectations? In business however, it would be a mistake to take a customer complaint personally: for the most part, that customer is not necessarily placing blame on an individual. But the fear of receiving any criticism can prevent us from realizing the advantages that good, constructive evaluation can give your business.

You’ll agree that becoming complacent about the way we serve our customers is not difficult: an avoidable delay here, a broken promise there, and suddenly your customer says you’re not meeting her expectations. It’s easy to become so focused on other matters of business that we forget to provide great service. Yet, as many leading business gurus have repeated in the past, providing excellent customer service should always be a top priority.

That’s why getting honest feedback from your customers is so important; feedback gives a benchmark from which to improve. Sure, it would be wonderful if we always got positive feedback, but that’s unrealistic. Constructive criticism or a customer complaint should be considered a symptom of a much bigger issue, and give you the opportunity to resolve the problem, particularly if you did not know it existed! Regularly sending evaluation forms to your all your customers, or subscribing to the services of a complaint driver like getclosure!, can give you an early warning and the chance to fix a problem which could impact on your businesses bottom line if left unresolved.

Yes, it’s not easy to be faced with a customer complaint, but avoiding the situation because you’re afraid of taking the complaint personally will eventually impact you directly: negative word of mouth alone could drive away new and existing customers. Rather, see a customer complaint as an opportunity to learn, adjust, repair, improve and prevent that problem from occurring again. One customer complaint is worth more than the praise from ten ‘happy’ customers.

Finally, remember that while you may fear receiving criticism, most people need a lot of courage or need to be really upset to lay a complaint. That customer may fear your reaction so much that they take the easier option: they take their business elsewhere. You can be certain that if one customer complains that many more have experienced the same frustration and disappointment and have quietly taken their business elsewhere. So perhaps it’s time to look at a complaint for what it can do for you and your company: a complaint is the gift of opportunity.

Marcel Oudejans is a Corporate Infotainer who is passionate about inspiring his audiences to deliver more “magic moments” to their customers in their customer service, sales & marketing. Marcel is the author of “The Serious Business Owner’s Guide To Creating Customers For Life” & provides more tricks, techniques & strategies on his blog, http://www.performmarketing.co.za

It is common sense to most of us that customer retention is the best way to ensure your business survives – of ‘recession proofing’ your business. Paradoxically it can seem common sense to cut customer service costs and customer retention costs during hard times. It may be that cost-cutting across the board is necessary to ensure survival of the business. But cutting customer retention costs can be a false economy, leading to further reductions in revenues as customers fall into the hands of competitors.

In these hard economic times, satisfied customers may be unable to spend more with your business, even if they want to. And with less to spend, consumers will naturally be more selective about where and how they spend their cash. This increases the pressure on businesses to perform and to retain existing customers.

In my view, getclosure! represents a very low cost and low effort method of improving your customer retention. In several past blog articles we have written about how getclosure! assists with customer retention, and about giving you a second chance to retain your customers. For more information on how getclosure! can help your business, contact the getclosure! team by clicking here. We would be delighted to help.

Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.

One of the key elements of delivering fantastic customer service is to prove that you are consistently trust-worthy. Recent events have caused many people to question the level of trust that they have put into banks, consultants, salespeople & even politicians!  It’s understandable that customers get so irate when they do not receive the level of service or commitment that they expected; when this happens frequently, or the incident is particularly negative, customers also feel that sense that they cannot trust you.  John Jantsch , author of ‘Duct Tape Marketing‘ says that you should get your customers to “know, like & trust you”.  As consumers, we are (or should be) particularly aware of ‘phishing’ websites, email scams & online identity theft. Yet due to our human nature, we tend to automatically trust a product or service provider’s promises. When the results don’t meet our expectations, we are disappointed that our trust has been misplaced.

Unfortunately, when the manufacturer or service provider is at fault, they often don’t understand that resolving the actual problem is less about delivering what the customer expected & more about rebuilding the relationship.  A customer & a supplier may even have a serious disagreement; however, as long as they are still able to trust each other, they can continue to do business! Even personal friendships can survive without love, but certainly not without trust.

When companies like getclosure! are requested to resolve complaints, they mediate in a way that trust can be re-established & the original problem can be solved. Since they have nothing to gain from the consumer’s frustration, the aggrieved customer has the advantage of being represented by a reasonable person who can be trusted to listen & identify the problem.  Similarly, a company who has been approached by getclosure! not has only the opportunity to ‘win back’ the customer, but also to show their future customers that they will respect their relationship with them.

This week, ask yourself the question: “Can my customers trust me?”

Marcel Oudejans is a Corporate Infotainer who is passionate about inspiring his audiences to deliver more “magic moments” to their customers in their customer service, sales & marketing.  Marcel is the author of “The Serious Business Owner’s Guide To Creating Customers For Life” & provides more tricks, techniques & strategies on his blog, http://www.performmarketing.co.za

getclosure! is using consumer feedback to rate the customer-centricity of suppliers.  This new rating system provides a nifty way for consumers to compare suppliers and to assess each supplier’s customer-centricity with others in the same industry.

According to Wikipedia, customer-centricity refers to “the orientation of a company to the needs and behaviours of its customers, rather than internal drivers (such as the quest for short term profit)”.  One of the best indications of customer-centricity is the way in which a supplier handles its customers’ complaints. getclosure! ratings take this a stage further by comparing each supplier’s rating to the rating of its industry.

Hats off to the top five suppliers:

African Bank comes out tops with an impressive overall rating of four out of five stars; Cell C is close behind with three and a half stars.  ABSA, Lewis Stores, Lifestyle Living, Best Electric and OK Furniture, House and Home each have three stars.

The overall rating measures each supplier’s customer centricity by taking the following into account:

• Customer satisfaction with the way in which the supplier has dealt with complaints.
• Customer satisfaction with the outcome of the complaints.
• Whether the supplier responds to complaints promptly (within three days).

If you put your cursor over a supplier name you can see the rating for each of these categories, as well as the number of customer feedbacks which make up the rating.  Click here to find out more about the rating methodology.

It will be interesting to see how South African suppliers adapt over the coming months and years as the international financial situation evolves and impacts local markets. The extent of the international financial turmoil still has a long way to go but I have no doubt that local suppliers of goods and services are already looking at what they may need to do to adjust to the changing conditions. This may be a good thing in one way for consumers because an obvious avenue for suppliers to look at would be to improve service and delivery in an effort to find new ways to compete in what could be a shrinking market. This is likely to affect every supplier across the board from local hardware stores to large national and global corporate organizations. It’s also likely to result in a shakeout as some suppliers find it easier than others to adapt to the changing environment, and new players emerge that are more agile and innovative.

Let us know what you think.

Arno is one of the directors of getclosure! Arno has extensive experience in IT design and development and was responsible for creating the getclosure! complaints management system. Click here to read more about Arno.

We’ve all been swamped in negative stuff about the tough economy, shaky politics (if any) and to cap it all, bad sports performances. Sometimes it’s a struggle to stay positive. And hard to be hopeful that things will get better. But if you tuned in to 702 Talk Radio this week, like I did, you might have had the same feel good lift that I got. Hey, maybe it’s not so bad after all! I’m talking about the small business competition they’re been running for the last two weeks. The winner gets to advertise their business on 702 – which for any small business on a shoebox (size 3) budget trying to get noticed in the clutter is a really cool prize.

It’s really refreshing to hear people raving about the great service they got from the small business they’ve nominated for the competition. The positive service messages and the energy of a lot of the callers is pretty contagious. It makes you wanna break out and start your own business – to give stunning service just for the pleasure of it… and of course to make big bucks when your customers keep coming back for more.

It just seems such an obvious and easy formula for business success, no matter what kind of business it is. So why don’t all businesses do the great service thing - all of the time??  They’d be so much more successful!! All of us know this simple recipe for success. Yet there’s still there’s so much bad service everywhere you go. What’s the problem? Maybe employees and business owners just get plain slack or stale after a while and kind of forget that their customers need attention and pampering 24/7. So I’m thinking 702’s small business competition could become a regular thing – to keep reinforcing and reminding us and businesses all the time that the secret of good service is not really a secret – it’s a known winner! So we can’t do much about interest rates, politics or losing a rugby game – but we can cut the slack and make some customers happy! Shhhh it’s a secret!

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