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A Complaint Is a Gift

“Barlow and Møller reveal why a complaining customer can be a company’s most valuable asset. And they show you exactly how to get your customer back, win a lot more business, and garner positive testimonials. If success in business is important to you, you want to read this book!”

Ron Kaufman, author and Founder of UP Your Service! College

“For businesses spending an ever-increasing amount of money researching customers’ expectations, this book is a breath of fresh air. This book could have been aptly titled ‘Converting Common Sense into Business Cents.’”

Paul Clark, General Manager, Customer Services, Country Energy, Australia

“A Complaint Is a Gift provides a great means for explaining how a company can provide service excellence and handle complaints through improved customer relationships, which ultimately will increase revenue and satisfaction.”

Thom Ray, General Manager, British Telecom

“Everything seems so complex these days. But Barlow and Møller have taken a tough issue and made it accessible, not only in the world of business, but also in our personal lives. I will never experience a complaint as destructive again.”

Russ Volckmann, PhD, Publisher and Editor, Integral Leadership Review

“In the convenience store business, after speed of delivery, service is everything. A Complaint Is a Gift drills down to the conditions necessary to make service recovery happen on a consistent basis.”

Lee Barnes, President, Family Fare Convenience Stores

“This book provides an inspirational attitude shift for service employees, a how-to formula for service recovery when faced with tough complaints, and a managerial makeover.”

Rick Brandon, coauthor of Survival of the Savvy

“This book treats service recovery as an art. The true test of a great brand is to leverage the opportunity to forge a new customer relationship. Through a careful blend of analytics, business creativity, and examples, these pages will convince you that complaints truly are gifts!

Mike English, Vice President, Customer Contact Centers, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

“This book’s concept is a mind-set that we at Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore have adopted to complement our brand promise. We have ingrained its importance among all our staff to be genuinely grateful for our guests’ feedback, whether favorable or not.”

Patrick Garcia Fiat, General Manager, Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore

“This book is spot on. It gets back to the fundamentals that drive our industry. The authors take you through the process of addressing a negative guest experience and turning that same guest into a Guest for Life. The title of this book could not be truer.”

Rich Hicks, President, Tin Star Restaurants

“We have one of the most spectacular sites in the world: the Sky Walk at Grand Canyon West. And we still get complaints! This book can help any organization achieve its customer experience goals. This concept works extremely well across many different cultures. This is very important today towards creating a truly international flavor regarding the customer experience.”

Waylon Honga, CEO, Grand Canyon West

“This book is for any executive who understands that truly satisfied clients breed the best opportunities for more clients, A Complaint Is a Gift is a powerful tool to be shared company-wide.”

Andy Jorishie, Senior Vice President, Ideas and Innovation, The Zimmerman Agency

“This book is a piece of art. I recommend it to anyone seeking excellence and learning about customer care in general and complaints in particular!”

Omran Al Shansi, Senior Complaint Manager, Emirates Telecommunications Corporation

“A Complaint Is a Gift is a marvelous book of practical tools and techniques for ensuring positive customer experiences and resolving even the most challenging customer complaints. It is packed full of tips to provide legendary customer service in even the most trying situations. These tools just work, hands down!”

Michael Krumpak, former Director of Learning and Development, United States House of Representatives

“The Complaint Is a Gift concept provides lasting differentiation. We believe that, as a network of banks, we can correct a large number of mistakes from our customers’ feedback. It will help us become more unique in the way we serve them. Complaint management is a critical element of our business strategy.”

Andrey Litvinov, Senior Vice President, Life Financial Group, Russia

“How exciting that ‘complaints’ have finally been addressed and embraced. Our business, based upon relationship building, has benefited greatly from the insights provided in A Complaint Is a Gift.”

Cliff Miller, Owner, M. J. Christensen Diamonds

“The Complaint Is a Gift philosophy has empowered our frontline associates to enhance and strengthen our guess and client relations. This unique communication approach to service breakdowns has enriched our organization, resulting in stronger teams and performance.”

Patricia LaMont, Director, Training and OD, Business Services, and Sheila Morehead, Senior Director, Training and OD, Business & Industry Group, ARAMARK

“A Complaint Is a Gift will challenge you to rethink complaints. This is a must-read book for anyone in business who wants to learn the secret of meeting customer expectations by redefining complaints as gifts. This powerful eight-step formula really works and empowers people to deal effectively with difficult situations.”

Peta Peter, Education and Training Manager, Amway of Australia and New Zealand

“This book is an invaluable part of our tool kit to create a compelling and differentiated customer service culture. It focuses on embracing customer complaints to refine services and re-engage customers, rather than viewing complaints as a necessary evil.”

Muriel Roake, Manager, Brand and Organizational Development, Air New Zealand

“I have been a disciple of Janelle’s and Claus’s work in this field for a number of years. The channels and the transparency in which complaints can now be made, through blogs and chat rooms, have necessitated an even more essential need to handle complaints efficiently and promptly.”

Nigel Roberts, Senior Vice President, Operations, The Langham Hotels & Resorts

“Customer service is a paradox: the more customer interactions a business has, the more it learns about the ‘negatives’ but also the more opportunities it has to create new ‘positives.’ Many of the elements in A Complaint Is a Gift have been used by Boyd Gaming and have been helpful as we continue to build our on-brand customer service delivery, monitoring, and proactive response programs.”

Brian Shultz, Vice President of Marketing, Midwest and South Region, Boyd Gaming Corporation

“This is a book about psychology—the psychology of customers who still care enough to complain, the psychology of organizations that are confident enough to still solicit complaints and act on them, and most importantly, the psychology of individual men and women in organizations and their varying degrees of confidence in entertaining complaints.”

Sanjay Tiwari, Director, Sales and Customer Services, KLM Cargo USA

“If you want to know what really works in complaint management, then study this book! It’s packed with powerful examples and the latest thinking on the topic. It is rare to find a book that packs a wallop for people involved in the practicalities of handling complaining customers and yet draws heavily on solid academic research.”

Jochen Wirtz, Professor, National University of Singapore, and coauthor of Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy

“This refreshing approach to service recovery and customer loyalty has become part of the Butterfield Bank corporate lexicon. Janelle and Claus provide food for thought, examples that teach and entertain, and easy-to-use guidelines for putting their strategy into practice.”

Lori Baker-Lloyd, Vice President, Organizational Development and Human Resources, The Bank of N. T. Butterfield & Son Limited, Bermuda