{"id":5628,"date":"2013-02-23T11:21:43","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T11:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/blog\/?p=5628"},"modified":"2013-02-23T11:21:43","modified_gmt":"2013-02-23T11:21:43","slug":"customers-are-complaining-more-thats-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/2013\/02\/customers-are-complaining-more-thats-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Customers are complaining more. That&#8217;s a good thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pakgwei\/1769799846\/\" title=\"hate mail by Pak Gwei, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2104\/1769799846_78603c956a.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" alt=\"hate mail\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Recently, I\u2019ve spotted a couple of stories about complaints that made me think:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li3\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-20959424\"><span class=\"s2\">Complainers &#8216;finding their voice&#8217;<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li3\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-21410439\"><span class=\"s2\">Gas and electricity firms&#8217; 15,000 daily complaints<\/span><\/a><span class=\"s3\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Some firms feel like the number of complaints that they are receiving is going up whilst some feel that it is going down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At the same time, many firms are working hard at resolving customer complaints quicker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">However, the bigger change underlying all of this is that our propensity, as customers, to complain is going up.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Personally, I think that is a good thing. Good for customers and good for businesses too. Despite how complaints may make us feel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For too long, many customers, particularly in the UK, have suffered in silence when things weren\u2019t quite right. This is rooted in the belief that to complain was unsightly or wasn&#8217;t the \u2018done thing\u2019.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">  <\/span>Instead, we&#8217;d leave whilst muttering under our breathe that we&#8217;d never patronise this business again and then proceed to moan to all of our friends about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I think that type of behaviour still exists.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But, now customers have so much more choice and may have done so much more research before they buy that when something goes wrong they really feel let down. And, proceed to tell you all about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That may feel harsh when you are on the receiving end of a complaint but they did pick you and now they are disappointed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But, I believe, that complaining and receiving complaints is a good thing. Why? Because at least your customers are talking to you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">What was it that Oscar Wilde said: <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Being Ignored\" src=\"http:\/\/i1112.photobucket.com\/albums\/k488\/sqacct7\/Topic%20Photos\/Section%20B\/beingignoredquotes.jpg\" title=\"Being Ignored\" class=\"aligncenter\" width=\"280\" height=\"229\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The reality is that any healthy business that is striving to be better and to grow will make mistakes and, so, complaints will happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That&#8217;s way better than the opposite&#8230;where you\u2019re not trying hard enough to make mistakes, you don\u2019t care enough to pay attention to complaints and nobody is talking about you or to you. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I pray that you are the former.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You may not like complaints. That\u2019s a normal human reaction.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">All I would say is: Get used to it. Learn to embrace the complaints. Because, as long as you are learning from your mistakes and are putting wrongs right, your customers will forgive you and keep talking to you and about you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b><i>Note: At the end of every month I write a newsletter that goes out to my subscribers (there&#8217;s quite a few of them) containing more stuff that doesn&#8217;t get published here. If you&#8217;d like to sign up to my newsletter then click <\/i><\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/adrianswinscoe.us1.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=ac1b7148c05765530550ca9c7&amp;id=eb3db23d2c\"><b><i>here<\/i><\/b><\/a><b><i>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/44124410076@N01\/1769799846\/\">Pak Gwei<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/compfight.com\">Compfight<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/\">cc<\/a> <\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, I\u2019ve spotted a couple of stories about complaints that made me think: Complainers &#8216;finding their voice&#8217; Gas and electricity firms&#8217; 15,000 daily complaints Some firms<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,27,13,15],"tags":[722,141,209,1367,1368,1369,1370],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}