Great post on Seth’s blog about how customer feedback should be one of the key drivers that help shape businesses’ offerings. And complaints should really be the start of a conversation that should end with the customer feeling encouraged and satisfied. It’s excellent advice and an excellent way to build a relationship with your customer base.
Unfortunately too many people tend to become defensive in when confronted by a disgruntled customer. They try to explain away the issue while at the end of the say, all the customer wants if reassurance that their purchase decision was a correct one. Customers need validation as we all do, and when they are disappointed with a purchase they are vulnerable and require assurance to ensure they don’t defect to an alternative supplier.
I really need to get round to buying one of Seth’s books. They’ve been on my recommended reading for ages now. I’ll probably get round to it after my exams in June.
Much as I hate to agree to the big mouths of the web (Seth, Nielson, et al), I have to agree.
How can you improve if you don’t listen to your users/customers? (This is why I’m currently revamping the checkout stage on our various e-Commerce sites to include a bit more graphical visual cues and workflow tweaks)
Take the BBC, after their £550,000 rebrand of their News output, they responded with a blog entry:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/04/comments_on_changes.html
Original blog entry:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/04/new_news.html
Of course, poor BBC, they’ll never satisfy *everyone*. As long as thye get rid of the grey, I’ll be happy.
Customer service is sadly getting worse and worse. Companies now see serving customers as just an expense. As though the money customers spend is just their right and the customer’s should just pay their money and stop asking for stuff. See the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog – Customer category for my thoughts on customer service.
i have 5+ years of customer service experience…i have been called every dirty name in the book and even once had a guy threaten to shoot me because of a return he made had to be credited to his card and not in cash. I think the reason that customer service is so bad is because to put up with all that I barely made $8 an hour and trying to feed & clothe & house me and my 2 year old. Seth has a point and he seems to understand it more than most people, but i doubt anyone has ever threatened to shoot him! I enjoyed small is the next new big – looking forward to meatball sundae when i have some time!