The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Handle Customer Complaints
In the past month I’ve had two separate interactions with two different businesses. The first retains my loyalty, and I will give them positive word of mouth.
The second destroyed any opportunity for customer loyalty. From now on, when anyone asks, I’ll have nothing kind to say about them. In both cases, it’s all about how they handled my complaint.
The Right Way
Comcast is the huge TV/Internet/telephone provider. In April we returned the TV modems from my father’s vacant home. Dad had recently passed away, and we wanted to discontinue service. I provided them with a death certificate to close the account and thought everything was done.
Then a week or so ago a Comcast employee showed up at his home. It turns out that we had forgotten about the modem connecting Dad’s computer to the Internet. Comcast told us the delinquent fees would be $371. Evidently, the cable modem was handled by a different department than the TV modems. We had received no communication from Comcast about the hardware at any time, even though my email address was on file as the point of contact.
I jumped on Twitter and sent a tweet to @Comcastcares. Within minutes, I had a response and an email address. An hour or so later, I emailed them with a description of the problem and e-copies of the data I had provided back in March. By mid-afternoon, I received a call from a Comcast executive and the problem was resolved with a very minimal payment. (After all, we had forgotten to turn in the modem.)
Comcast demonstrated the ability to listen to a customer and rapidly follow up. Having heard of nightmare stories involving Comcast and other cable and satellite providers, I was caught off balance. Their fast action and willingness to listen, rather than stand on a company-centric policy, puts me in their debt, and I’ll repay it by positive word of mouth.
The Wrong Way
In March, my wife and I purchased a couch and love seat from a small furniture chain with stores in several Texas cities. The furniture would have to be specially made in the vendor’s Canadian factory. We were told it would take four to six weeks.
After four weeks we called to check on our order. “We’ll check with the factory and call you back,” we were told. They never did.
Two weeks later they did call us. It seems that the leather the tannery sent the factory was substandard. They would have to start over. We were told by the store that they would put a rush on it, and it would be three to four weeks.
Four weeks later we started calling once a week. Each time we were told the furniture was not ready. My wife talked with the manager who, when told we were given three to four weeks, argued the point with her. “No one on my staff would say that!” Well, your sales rep did.
Frustrated, I went on Facebook and wrote a polite post on their page saying how disappointed we were. This resulted in a call to my wife and another to me from the manager complaining about how unfair the post was. He still didn’t get it. He was “listening with the intent to argue, not to understand.” It was all about his company. Not about how their promises to us had been broken.
Eventually, we received the furniture, and they received their balance due. But they lost any chance at gaining repeat business or referrals from us. In fact, when the subject of buying furniture comes up, we’ll tell people about our poor customer experience there.
Ninety percent of all management problems are caused by miscommunication. On the strategic level, Comcast has a customer- focused process for rapidly handling complaints. The furniture chain doesn’t. Tactically, the difference between Comcast and the furniture chain came down to their differing attitudes and the way they communicated with us. Comcast was proactive, fast, and focused on the customer. The furniture chain was reactive, slow, and focused on their needs, not ours.
Investing time and money in developing a customer-focused rapid response complaint process will make it easier for you to retain customers and increase their loyalty to you. And the real benefit to you is more sales, more referrals, and fewer opportunities for negative reviews for your organization.
Regards,
Glenn
Communicate with me on Twitter. I’m @txglennross.
