Love the customers you hate, or how to handle negative feedback

Entrepreneurs, customer service representatives, PR and social media specialists. They all hate complaining clients and perceive them as necessary evil or natural disaster: awful but inevitable.

That’s one approach, tempting, common but far from good marketer’s mindset. He would try to get different perspective and ask:

What’s positive about negative opinions about my company/ product?

Feedback moves brand – customer relationship to new level.

Psychologically speaking, we see brands as if they were other people, not some economic abstract constructs. We assign personality to them, we judge them, we like them or not.

When client is dissatisfied, he experiences it as being hurt or disappointed, what might actually strengthen his relationship with a brand. Why? Because it has an opportunity to show its human face and uniqueness. Company can act like a good friend: admit mistake, be sorry, express remorse, offer consolation. “We messed up, but we will do our best to make up for this” sounds good, for openness to criticism is seen as proof of self-confidence and maturity. What appeared to be a crisis turns into opportunity to display brand as emphatic, understanding and kind.

Critics often are authorities.

If you own a restaurant, he will flood you (your employees, you social media platforms, your inbox, your helpdesk) with tricky questions about portion size, details of recipes and policy of table cloth laundering. He will also mull over whether your blueberry pie is eco/ vegan/ gluten free. He will write a blog post on your eco-unfriendliness.

If you got poorly reviewed by blogger or overwhelmed with unsettling inquiries by some enthusiast, don’t panic and don’t underestimate this. People with passion and/or knowledge often attract followers. Wherever they go, followers go along. Negative feedback from an influencer stages scene for the brand to appear in front of new audience, in a new context. And even if it can’t win the critic and turn him into a fan, some followers might like the way situation was dealt with.

Mistakes found – precious feedback

Somebody has bypassed your security systems or hacked your loyalty plan? Customers found weakness on your website, some illogical solution or any other mistake? Admit it: you feel a bit like a fool, your pride and self-esteem are hurt, but the critic did a good job discovering a problem your great team overlooked. Appreciate rebellious client and let him know that you recognize him as a pro. Reward him. That’s what he wants.

And remember the mistake is yours. Draw conclusion. Make corrections. Somebody just invested his time in helping you to improve!

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After recognizing the hidden potential of complaints we can move on to thinking about strategy. Ready? If you want to create really unique critical experience for your clients, it must go beyond your customer service representatives or PR/SM department. It requires getting strong foundations before negative feedback actually arises.

1) Negative marketers role-play

Make a list of things people might find troubling, annoying, obscure, uncool, inconvenient about your product/ website/ service. What for? To learn to empathize with dissatisfied clients. Information from customer service and web analytics data might be helpful, but try also to look at your creation as a stranger would. Use imagination. (Marketers are exhausted of having to be enthusiastic about the project all the time. They will adore adopting critical approach for a while.)

Having collected the clues (both data and effects of aforementioned experiment), profile a complainer and create a manual, preparing for questions, justifying why certain solutions were chosen (i. e. why does it cost so much? why don’t you have free shipping?) and instructing how to handle possible problems. A map of imaginable criticism enables quick responses. And it could give some thoughts on changes that might be made right now, without waiting for future complaints.

2) Listen!

Speaking of: do you know what happens with your customers complaints? Do you filter interesting inspirations from junk and try to apply some suggestions, solve indicated problems? Do you store customers ideas? Do you analyze them? Obviously you product/ service should appeal to customers so they can give you most precise tips.

People love being treated seriously and seeing that their opinion matters. When your client can see that he inspired you to really doing some changes, he feels appreciated. Sometimes improvement is really small and doesn’t require much work (like posting some information on the website), but client becomes part of your company.

3) Invest in your Customer Service Team

Customer Service Revolution is a fact. Clients are used to perfectly tailored services and won’t agree on less.

Your customer service representatives are first line of contact. Make sure that they are committed to brand ideas, know how to respond and control emotions. Empower them. Give them some freedom in order to enhance problem solving process. Better if Joan-from-helpdesk gave angry client a discount that if this client had to wait for she to consult several other persons. Quick reaction works best: customer would be disarmed and Joan would feel better about her role in the company.

It all comes down to Shep Hyken’s maxim: “Treat your staff as well as you want them to treat your customers”.

4) Be faster than critics- automatize!

A customer doesn’t fall in the abyss of discontent out of the sudden: his behavior on the website indicates his troubles way before he starts filling out complaint form, reaches for a telephone or starts writing a hateful post. Using that data can prevent many cases of dissatisfaction and complaints. Simply: when behavior of soon-to-be-unsatisfied customer is identified (analyzing returns policy, complaint form, regulations), preventing actions might be undertaken automatically (exposing a chat with a consultant? link to FAQ or useful articles on the blog?). Content personalized for client in trouble provides the best solution: the customer feels taken care of and treated individually.

At the same time your customer service team can focus on handling fewer but more complex situations.

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Negative feedback? Unique critical experience can seem more authentic and more intimate than any other customer-brand interaction. Now you are ready to use most critical opinions to your advantage.