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A Complaint Is a Gift Strategy
It’s not easy to listen to complaining customers all day long. The following tirade by a service representative venting on the Internet is not all that different from many we have heard in person. You can almost hear the conflict this service provider is experiencing about her job, especially when she confronts an upset customer.
Customer complaints suck. Customers complain 90 percent of the time because they have had a bad day and need someone to take it out on. I work for a wireless company and I get so many complaints that it is sickening . . . My job is to help the customer, but there is a limit that any employee of any company can tolerate. I am sick of customer complaints. No matter how hard I try, customers are not satisfied within the limit of what we as employees can do by company policy . . . but when a customer comes into an establishment with an attitude from the start, it is hard to keep a level head when they are screaming at you and accusing you of being rude.
Anonymous
How About a Slightly Different Scenario?
Imagine that a friend comes to visit on your birthday with a lovely present in hand. The first thing you would say after greeting him or her would, most likely, be an expression of gratitude. “Thank you. Thank you for coming and thank you for the lovely present.” Your entire verbal and nonverbal language would signal your pleasure at seeing your friend and receiving the gift.
What if you then opened this gift and found a CD purchased just for you? What would you say? “Wow! I’m so pleased. I’ve wanted this CD for some time. How thoughtful of you to get it for me. How did you know this is my favorite artist? I’ll think of you every time I listen to it.” Okay, maybe not that profuse but something along those lines.
Now imagine that a customer has called you with a complaint. “My name is Chris Cooper, and your wireless service never works. I keep getting disconnected, and your advertising goes on and on about how you can be heard anywhere in the country. And that’s not all. My first bill had charges for calls I know I didn’t make. But that doesn’t surprise me. If you can’t get the connections right, you probably can’t get your billing right!” Would you say, “Thank you for calling and telling us about this. How thoughtful of you. We really appreciate it”? Probably not.
But when we receive a birthday present, we do not hesitate. We say, “Thank you.” Why do we do this? Because a friend took time to get us something special—in most cases. What about complaining customers? Are they friends? Or do they look like enemies? What are they trying to do? What are they giving us?
Complaining customers are giving us an opportunity to find out what their problems are so we can help them and they will be encouraged to come back, use our services, and buy our products. It’s as if they have gifted us with a blog written just for us: “A Chance to Survive: Listen to Me and You’ll Stay in Business.” So don’t say, “Go away. I’ve already got one CD by this artist, and I don’t want to listen to another. I’m too busy.”
When encountering the customer who complains about phone calls that are continually dropped and repetitive billing errors, many company representatives will start by asking a barrage of identification questions: “What is your name? How do you spell that? What is your phone number? What is your address? When did you start your service? What is the product number of your telephone? (By the way, if you don’t have it handy, it’s on the bottom of your phone in such tiny digits that you’ll need a magnifying glass to read it.) Do you have your monthly bill in front of you? What is our order number? What is your Web order number? What is your PO number?1 When did you send in your last payment?” They may blame billing by sighing and saying, “We hear a lot of complaints about incorrect billing.” They may attack their own company by saying, “Those dropped calls happen a lot. It’s rather unbelievable that our advertising says we’re the best in the business. If that’s true, it makes you wonder about all the other wireless companies.” If customers are very lucky, they will get an apology.
But very few customer service people will say “Thank you” right off the bat. They may thank you at the end of the conversation, by which time you may be so annoyed, it’s a meaningless phrase.
What if someone gave you a CD for your birthday and you responded with a barrage of questions: “Where did you buy it? Did you pay cash or charge it? Did you pay full price for it or get it at a discount store—or on eBay? Come on. Fess up. How many songs does it have on it? Have you already listened to it and downloaded it onto your iPod? Why did you give it to me if you haven’t heard it yourself? Based on some silly best-seller iTunes list, you want me to spend my time listening to this thing?” You would never be so ungracious about a gift unless you have genuine social problems, in which case no one would be likely to give you a gift in the first place. You would say, “Thank you,” and you would mean it—even if you already had a copy of this CD or didn’t like most of the songs on it.
The mind-set of customer-facing staff has a huge influence on what is going to happen in any service encounter, particularly when complaints are being made or help is requested. In a study relevant to the impact of mind-set on complaint handling, researchers at the University of Alabama questioned how service employees themselves impact the use of self-service technologies (SSTs).2 Employees whose mind-set was that SSTs helped them do their own jobs better took time to educate customers facing problems on how to operate the SST devices. When faced with customers who couldn’t get the devices to do what they wanted, employees who held the mind-set that SSTs are a burden and not a convenience for anyone would simply step in and operate the devices themselves. Their customers didn’t have a chance to learn themselves, ensuring that when they returned they would face the same difficulty. Mind-set definitely matters, even though the service employees had no awareness of how their attitudes were impacting their behavior.
A survey of European retail banks revealed a direct connection between the way that leaders at financial institutions think about complaints and the way that customers behave when they have a complaint and ultimately how they are treated.3 Customers, in other words, can sense that an organization sees complaints as a gift or as a necessary evil. An in-depth study of two Swedish banks also supports the idea that the way branch managers think about complaints impacts how customers are treated and how they respond. The researchers found that successful managers used complaint handling as their primary tool for creating long-term customer satisfaction with small-business customers.4
So, how can we begin to internalize the strategic idea that a complaint is a gift? It starts by understanding what a complaint is.
What Is a Complaint?
In simplest terms, complaints are statements about expectations that have not been met. They are also, and perhaps more importantly, opportunities for an organization to reconnect with customers by fixing a service or product breakdown. In this way, complaints are gifts customers give to businesses. Everyone will benefit from carefully opening these packages and seeing what is inside.
On the surface, customers may complain that their newly purchased blue jeans shrank or the color ran and ruined a load of white clothing. At a deeper level, customers are giving the store where they bought the item an opportunity to respond so they will continue buying more clothing from that business.
On the surface, customers may complain that the vacuum cleaner they just purchased doesn’t suit their needs. At a deeper level, they are testing the retailer to see how it takes back the vacuum cleaner.
On the surface, customers may complain that they waited on hold for three and a half hours to get help setting up their expensive new computer. At a deeper level, they are speaking about their fears that they made a stupid purchasing decision, a fear that will periodically rear up to impact how they think about their computer during the years it remains functional.
On the surface, customers may complain to the grocer that the turkey they purchased did not contain any giblets, which they discovered only on Thanksgiving day itself, when the store was closed. At a deeper level, customers are wondering whether the grocer will take their word for it and how the store will compensate them for this disappointment.
On the surface, customers let their insurance agents know in no uncertain terms that when they call the insurance company to ask a simple question, their calls are not returned for days. At a deeper level, customers are warning their agents that they may look at a competitor when their policy comes up for renewal.
What do you suppose most service representatives hear—the surface complaint or the deeper message? We contend that, unfortunately, all too many hear only the direct, surface message. (“You won’t believe what I heard today from a customer! Their turkey didn’t have any giblets. I say, ‘Get a life.’ People are starving, and they are complaining because their twenty-five-pound turkey didn’t have any giblets!”) And the end results are mismanaged complaints, lack of empathy, and loss of customers.
When organizations listen to customers with open minds and more flexible points of view, they can experience complaints as gifts. Unfortunately, most of us don’t like to hear complaints and we erect enormous psychological blocks to hearing them. Even more fundamentally, as we will discuss later, most customers simply don’t grace us with their complaints. They just take their business elsewhere.
Why We Don’t Like Complaints
On the surface, it seems apparent why complaints have a bad reputation. Customers are saying that they do not like something about us. Who likes to hear that? It means there’s something wrong with us. Complaints are about blame, or what psychologists call negative attribution.
When something positive happens, people have a tendency to attribute it to themselves or to take credit for their own behavior. For example, a customer buying a dress will likely think herself rather clever for finding it if she receives compliments on it, even if a shopkeeper clearly found the dress, brought it to the buyer, and urged her to purchase it.
Something different happens, however, when a failure occurs. Most of us like to blame other individuals or systems when things aren’t working out. In fact, according to Saint Louis University research, customers tend to blame specific firms or specific individuals. For customers, this usually means that employees, specifically those we are eye-to-eye or ear-to-ear with, are to blame when there is a product or service failure. Employees do the same thing in reverse. When they hear complaints, they tend to blame the customers, and when customers engage in socially unacceptable behavior (such as shouting or swearing), employees almost always develop a negative attitude toward them. When employees hold this negative judgment, they tend not to make product exchanges for customers, or at a minimum, they do not make product exchanges easy.5 Many employees understand, however, that blaming customers is not a behavior likely to get them high marks from customers or promoted by their managers, so they mask their feelings and try to come up with more acceptable theories as to why things went wrong. A common explanation is that the organization, its policies, or management is to blame. Employees may say to customers, “I’d really like to help you, but there’s nothing I can do. Our policy . . .” or “My hands are tied. I’ll get in trouble if I do that for you. Sorry.”
Unfortunately, blaming policies has little impact on customers because it does nothing to resolve their problems. Nor does it stop customers from blaming the employees. Even if employees indicate that they do not agree with the policies that are stopping them from satisfying customers, most customers don’t separate employee behavior from company policies. The father of modem attribution theory, Fritz Heider, notes that most of us attribute blame to individuals rather than the circumstances surrounding a product or service failure.6 For example, if a service provider says, “I know this sounds ridiculous, but I need . . . ,” customers will likely think, “If it’s ridiculous, then why are you asking for this information?”
Most service delivery today is complex, and a number of firms or individuals may have been involved in the service failure.7 This means that service providers need to carefully explain what happened without sounding as if they are attempting to pass blame onto someone else. They can probably accomplish this by saying, “I’m going to take responsibility for this, even though several people were involved. We need to find out what happened so I can solve this problem for you.”
Wegmans Food Market, a popular chain in the upper northeastern United States, operates under the promise “Every day you get our best,” and that means “[we] will listen to your complaints so [we] can get better.” Wegmans, founded in 1916, has won more than thirty significant awards for its uniqueness and customer service and for “changing the way we shop.” It won the 2007 Food Network Award for the Best Grocery Store.8 And Wegmans has been named one of the one hundred best places to work in America by Fortune magazine every year since the list started in 1988. It was number one in 2005, number two in 2006, and number three in 2007.9
Wegmans honors the implicit contract that customers assume has been made: if they do not like what they purchased, if it does not meet their needs, if it is substandard, or if they have changed their minds, they are buying the right to say something about this. It asks for complaints on its Web site; feedback forms are easy to fill out, and it is obvious someone reads them. The site states clearly that a live person will address the complaint and get back to the customer within a few days. We tried it, and it works. The vice president of consumer affairs, Mary Ellen Burris, incorporates information about complaints into her weekly columns, letting consumers know what Wegmans is doing about the feedback it receives. In one column posted on the Wegmans Web site, for example, she noted that customers complained about not being able to clearly see measurement lines on one of its detergent caps. Wegmans listened and changed the cap color.
Complaining Customers Are Still Customers
In order for us to treat complaints as gifts, we need to achieve a complete shift in perception and attitude about the role of complaints in modern business relationships. This requires separating the message of the complaint from the emotion of being blamed, which, in turn, means understanding the dynamics of disappointed people and rethinking how complaints can help us achieve our business goals. Consider these examples from the homebuilding industry, and imagine what these companies would say if they were asked if complaints are gifts.
• Marvin Windows and Doors learned that the wood frames on its windows and doors were rotting. It turns out that the complaints came in after the one-year warranty period was up. The cause of the problem was actually wood preservative provided by Pittsburgh Paint and Glass (PPG). PPG refused to take responsibility for the rotting, but Marvin Windows did. It replaced the damaged products, ditched PPG as a supplier, and sourced a better preservative so it could extend its product warranty from one year to ten. In 2007, after also winning the award in 2006, Marvin Windows received the highest numerical score in the J. D. Powers and Associates Award for Builders and Remodelers.
• Dryvit produces exterior insulate and finish systems. Moisture was rotting its siding products basically because of builder installation mistakes. Dryvit took responsibility and created a moisture drain to keep its product dry. Dryvit also increased its warranty to ten years. Following this change, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the most respected testing facility of the U.S. Department of Energy, ranked Dryvit’s product 84 percent higher than the next-best-performing system.10
• In the late 1980s, Louisiana-Pacific Building Products began hearing complaints about rotting of its InnerSeal siding, especially in the wet Pacific Northwest. Eight hundred thousand homes had used the product, and a major class-action lawsuit was filed. Louisiana-Pacific decided to take responsibility, even though the rotting was an installation problem, not a product problem, and replaced the damaged siding. The company completely redesigned the siding so it would work in humid climates, called it SmartSide, and announced a fifty-year warranty. After taking a major hit in the press, six years later the company more than regained market share. It, too, has been recognized with numerous awards.11
• Dudley Webre purchased a lumberyard in Luling, Louisiana, when that area wasn’t an up-and-coming business sector in the region. Webre went directly to his contractors to find out what was bothering them. It turned out that they had a serious problem that Webre could help them with. Lumberyards typically shipped only full truckloads, which meant that the contractors had to safeguard their inventory against theft. Webre sent out smaller loads, which eliminated the theft problem and resulted in a savings to his customers from reduced pilferage, even though they ended up paying more for the lumber. Between 1982 and 1994, Landry Lumber and Building Supply increased its business by 300 percent.12
Customers who take time to complain have at least a little confidence in the organization. After all, if they’re complaining, they are still customers somewhat. Former president Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife in the tightly fought Democratic Party 2008 nomination process, told a story intended to inspire all the campaign workers to keep contacting undecided voters. He said that when he was governor of Arkansas, he never gave up on getting someone’s vote. Clinton was campaigning at an oil company where, because of government action, three hundred jobs had been saved. Clinton met an employee who obviously didn’t like him and told him, “I’m never voting for you. If you were the last person on earth, I wouldn’t vote for you.” Clinton told the man, “Hey, I saved your job.” The man responded, “Yeah. But you only did it so you’d have one more person to tax.” Clinton said, “I marked him as undecided.”13
All those customers who come to you with their complaints are also undecided. They’re still talking with you. Don’t give up.
Treating Customers as Honest Is Part of the Complaint Is a Gift Strategy
See complaints through the eyes of your customer and you have a better chance of viewing complaints as a gift. Imagine that whatever the customer is complaining about has just happened to you. What would you be thinking and feeling? How would you react? What would you expect? What would it take to make you happy? What response would be necessary for you to walk away from this encounter and feel good about your complaint and better about the company? Being treated as if you are honest would be a beginning point.
Are there customers who try to rip your business off? No doubt there are. But companies cannot treat all customers as if they were thieves in order to protect themselves against the few who are. Guy Kawasaki, author of the best-selling book Selling the Dream, writes on his blog, “The point is: Don’t assume that the worst case is going to be the common case . . . If you put in a policy to take care of the worst case, bad people, it will antagonize and insult the bulk of your customers.”14
It is estimated that 1 to 4 percent of customers will systematically try to cheat.15 Most companies factor in this kind of behavior as part of the cost of doing business, though obviously it would be better to minimize that type of loss. No doubt the Internet has spawned a number of scams. Fraudulent activities of all types have exploded on the Web. The key is to keep your fraud antennae on alert without offending customers who would never cheat you.
George Sarris, owner of The Fish Market Restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama,16 received a demand for $6.89 from a disgruntled customer who supposedly had dined in his restaurant. Sarris gets close to his customers, so when he couldn’t remember this particular customer, he became suspicious and decided to put on his detective cap. He made a few telephone calls and learned that this disgruntled diner had been busy eating all over town, demanding $6.89 from everyone! Most of the other restaurants simply paid up because the amount was so small.17 This type of scam even has a name: Phony Customer Con. In such an instance, it’s best to write a very pleasant, courteous response (follow the Gift Formula in chapter 6) and indicate that you will be more than happy to return the sum in question. Don’t in any way question the integrity of the “customer,” but ask for a copy of the receipt or for more details for your own records. If you want, include a self-addressed stamped envelope to make it easy for this person to respond—in case the complaint is legitimate.
Always be aware that if someone does try to take advantage of your organization through exaggerated claims, chances are that other customers who witness your interaction will be impressed that you treated the customer with respect and considered the feedback a gift. Onlookers will be more reasonable when expressing their own complaints.
Tom Weir, executive editor of Grocery Headquarters, describes watching a swearing, ballistic customer return a carton of milk that had supposedly been purchased earlier in the day but was way past its sell-by date and was spoiled. The manager of this supermarket remained seated in a booth overlooking the checkout lanes and yelled back that customers should always check expiration dates before buying anything. This is a good example of advice that blames. After all, how many of us check sell-by dates every time we shop? Since when have customers become responsible for inventory control?
It’s not a pretty story, but Weir poses some interesting questions about the message sent to the customers who watched this scene. What was being said to them? Weir asks. Were they taught a lesson as to what would happen to them if they had a complaint? What was the impact on this supermarket brand? Did the customers conclude that this is the chain’s policy? And then Weir asks about the message the store staff received. Do they not have to take any guff from angry customers? If this is the case, then where is the line drawn after which staff get to attack customers?18 Obviously, the other customers saw an out-of-control customer, but as Weir points out, they probably also noted that this customer had a legitimate complaint and was treated rudely. The customers who were watching may have questioned whether the company was genuinely interested in taking care of its customers.
The moment individuals or companies give any hint that they view complainers with suspicion or rudeness, customers will take a defensive position or fight back. Or even worse, they may go away angry and not say anything to the company headquarters but tell everyone they know, and the company will have no chance to defend itself.
Some individuals lack gracious social skills and may appear inappropriate when they complain. They get nervous and may seem harsh, angry, or even stupid. They may not have experience with what is reasonable. The service provider must learn to focus on the content of the complaint and the emotions presented and not whether the complaint is delivered in a socially acceptable way. This is asking a lot of service providers, but if they adopt the mind-set that complaints are gifts, they start from the best foundation to handle one of the most difficult aspects of customer relations.