Why Are Customer Complaints Important for Improving Your Business

Anytime a customer is leaving a complaint with a support team, the vendors think that the world is about to stop. After all, complaints and customer tickets are rarely left with good reason. They are left to notify the vendor about the problem with the service or product that needs to be addressed or fixed. And vendors treat customer complaints with different degrees of seriousness. The attention to it varies between “We will fix it right away” to “We don’t care enough to move a finger”.

Surely, the second approach is a destructive one as it doesn’t move a business forward, it only pushes it further back. But, in reality, vendors and service providers need to think “Why do customers complain?” and fix anything that might trigger future customer complaints. 

The Statistics

Gathering the statistics about customer complaints is one of the core points when it comes to quality of service. For example, only 1 out of 26 unsatisfied customers is going to make a call to the support team and leave an official complaint.

Other statistics say that 13 percent of those who come in contact with bad customer service are going to tell about this experience to around 15 people. This means that by providing bad service or neglecting to fix an issue for 100 people, vendors rid themselves of about 200 additional customers. Imagine how much profit that is!

US companies lose up to $62 billion in revenue due to poor customer service and that includes, failing to adhere to customer complaints. 

So, customers complain and that is all there is to it. Now, modern businesses need to know how to deal with the complaints and how to make sure that their customers have no reason to complain in the future. Well, first, you need to understand — why do customers complain so much?

Why Do Customers Complain?

There might be several reasons for your customers to take their time and leave a complaint with your support or customer service team:

• 😒 Poor customer service

Of course, the most common reason for a complaint is poor customer service or bad quality of a product purchased. Surely, the customers have the full right to complain about poor or downright bad customer service when they encounter one. Plus, try putting yourself in their shoes. Would you come back to deal with the company providing bad service? Of course no! So, why should your customers be any different?

• 😓 No omnichannel presence

One of the features of good customer service is omnichannel presence that gives your customers the possibility to connect with you any way they find suitable. Take social media. Only 8% of businesses respond within the standard 30 minutes when they get an inquiry on social media. 12% do not respond to social media messages at all, meaning that they virtually lose 2 percent of their customer base as a result of providing bad customer service.

SupportYourApp provides an omnichannel presence, meaning that we make sure that our clients’ customer base can get in touch with the support team any way they prefer.

• 💰 Hidden fees and costs

Of course, we all want to see the truth. And we all want to get all the information up-front, especially if we talk about monetary questions. And customers coming across hidden fees and hidden costs have the right to complain about such an occasion to those, responsible for such a mishap.

• ❌ Leaving an issue unresolved or ignoring the complaint altogether

One complaint is bad enough. But when a customer has to call multiple times in order to turn the vendor’s attention towards the issue reported once before, that is twice as bad. Ignoring the complaint and thinking that the issue will not be noticed once again is one of the top mistakes made by the vendors who have to deal with customer complaints.

• 💛 The desire to help improve their favorite businesses

That is right. The customers who just occasionally use the service are not going to care about the quality. But those loyal to your brand will take their time to contact and notify you about the slip-ups in services or quality, making sure that you have the room and time to improve and continue providing them with your services.

Dealing With Customer Complaints

There are several steps that we at SupportYourApp take in order to ensure that our clients’ customers are satisfied with the help they are getting. During the process of onboarding as well as during their first weeks in SupportYourApp we teach the newcomers to:

• Stay calm when dealing with any type of customers;
• Use positive language only;
• Remember about the importance of each inquiry;
• Be as empathetic as possible;
• Do not be afraid to ask the Service Delivery Manager or the Team Leader questions;
• Show as much initiative as possible;
• Take ownership of your work.

These steps, among others, ensure that our consultants know how to deal with any type of customers and their complaints. As a result, our resolution level is held on the same high, no matter their difficulty or the need to escalate.

Why Is It Important for Customers to Complain?

A complaint is not the most desired thing for a business to get. But the number of complaints is a great way to see whether your brand can withstand the criticism and whether your customer base cares enough to dedicate the time to making a complaint. Surely, not the best way to get to know your customers, but it is the best way to find what they do not like and eliminate these things to make your services and wares superb.

And now to the main part! 

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Want to outsource your support team to deal with customer complaints?

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What to Do With Customer Complaints?

Why are customer complaints so important for businesses? As we have already mentioned before, if you are a successful or growing business you gain the opportunity to see the problematic areas of your business and fix them until they can do any damage.

In the long run, analyzing your customers’ complaints will help you learn several very important customer service lessons such as:

1.😇 There is no such thing as a bad customer

Bad customers are a myth. Especially, if you are working in the service industry. If the customer is frustrated, irritated or angry, it is the job of a support consultant to find the right approach, calm the customer down and provide them with the best customer support they can, ideally, completely resolving their issues altogether in the shortest time.

2. 💼 Invest in your customer support consultants and into cultivating your corporate culture

85 percent of the people are not happy at work. That is a staggering amount. All because their companies fail to invest into their development and into creating and cultivating a proper culture and atmosphere in the offices. Of course, this means that everyone inside those 85 percent are prompt for a fast burnout. As a result, they fail to provide the best customer service and deal with customer complaints properly and in a timely manner. Surely, the customers will feel this and will surely be vocal about your bad support services.

3. 🌞 Create supportive atmosphere within your company structure

There is no way that support consultants can provide the best service if they are placed in a bad or even toxic environment. To be honest no one will be able to operate in an environment like this. That is why we at SupportYourApp do everything we can in order to create the atmosphere perfect for efficiency and results. Our consultants are free to talk to anyone from our management team. They are free to ask to be transferred to another team (if the circumstance allows) and they are free to talk to their Service Delivery Manager if they start burning out. 

In general, dealing with customer complaints helps us open up our teams and see their full potential. How are they communicating with customers in distress? How fast can they make decisions and resolve the tickets? How long does it take them to find just the right solution? We get the answers to all of these questions while the teams are dealing with all the complaints.

⁉️ So, why are customer complaints important to business? Because they help them grow and develop, finding all the bottlenecks and eliminating them to improve the services or goods. Complaints are one of the driving forces behind the development and evolution of every business, present in the modern market. And providing the best teams for the complaints’ resolution is what SupportYourApp will gladly do for your business as well.

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