We need to start welcoming customer complaints with open arms!

At a recent staff meeting I requested that we all start referring to “customer complaints” as “customer enquiries,” as I firmly believe that we need to change our mindsets from viewing complaints as negative. Instead, we should all rather see these crucial customer contact points in a more positive, constructive light.

This all stems from an interesting point told to me some time ago; apparently there is a Japanese word that when translated means “complaint” in one dialect and “gift” in another. (I recently had this verified by a Japanese MBA student, but alas the word is still unpronounceable to me). This point further ties into one of my favourite idioms, “there is no such thing as zero defect.”

Marketers are human and, as such, are fallible, they make mistakes and things can and do go wrong. They also sometimes make wrong decisions, which in turn, lead to defects in the marketer's offering to the customer. If we all accept this fact, then it stands to reason that we should see these “customer complaints” as “gifts”, for without this customer feedback, (albeit usually of a negative nature), how would we, as marketers, know what to correct?

It seems that perhaps we spend too much time defending our product, service or organisation when a customer “complains”, instead of thinking, “this customer has a valid point, it shows that our delivery process / product functionality / payment options etc. do not fit the needs of the customer.”

I am not advocating that the customer is always right, but rather that the customer has a right to “always be heard”. As I am sure we are all very much aware, some customers will never be satisfied, it's in their DNA not to be, they are just programmed like that! But the majority of our customers should be seen to have a valid complaint or enquiry - why would they bother if it was not an issue for them? And, whilst we must deal with each “enquiry” on an individual basis, we should constantly be questioning what went wrong and why and whether we can improve our offering.
This brings me to another useful Japanese word - that of “kaizen”, which when literally translated means “continuous improvement”. What better way for us to continually improve our product or service than to use the “gifts” that we are given by way of our customers' enquiries?

When working as a business transformation consultant, I had the pleasure of implementing a “balanced scorecard” – a clever way of identifying individuals' key performance areas so that each employee's work transcends upwards to achieve the organisation's overriding strategy. One KPI that we identified for the marketing team was “a reduction in customer enquiries.” Surely this provides a great indication of whether or not the product or service is meeting the target customers' needs and desires!

To sum up, let all marketers attempt to stop rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth when faced with a customer's problem – smile, handle it and let it assist in improving the product or service.