How seriously do you take complaints? Do you nod knowingly until the customer is gone, then go back to work? Or do you carefully consider everything the customer is saying, intending to act upon it?
Too few people do the latter. We all know that good customer service involves listening to the customer and addressing their problems or concerns, but what about after the customer is gone? Giving up when the customer walks away means you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Every time a customer complains, it’s an opportunity for you to think. Not only about what the customer needs to be satisfied, but about what the caused the dissatisfaction in the first place. Can a process be improved to prevent this type of problem from occuring in the future?
One of the best examples of making use of the opportunities that complaints bring has to be the Ritz hotel chain. They have (or, at one stage, had) a book called the “opportunity book”. In that book there was a record of every complaint, who made it, who addressed it, and what was done to resolve it. The book can then be reviewed, to identify trends and develop improvement plans.
The point is that it’s possible to learn from customer complaints. Don’t just solve them, grab onto them and wring out every bit of value they’ll give you. Use it to build you business into a customer-driven powerhouse.
Yes, I agree with you that, when someone complaint for our services, then that we did something wrong, and from that we are learning. But, we are people and intelligent. So, for us not to commit any mistakes, we should take first in advance what would be the consequences of our actions.