Driving Brand Advocacy Through Complaint Management

I apologise in advance for the long post, but I’ve been DYING to put this into words! Thanks in advance for following.

We have all been in the situation where we have been served a bad meal at a restaurant, received a broken product in the post, had a rude call centre agent or just received service / product that was not up to scratch in general.

The question is, how do you deal with this as a consumer and what are companies / businesses doing about it? Personally, I’m not one to let things like this slide and if someone is rude to me or treats me badly, I tell them. If it continues to happen, I turn to the complaints department as well as social media. Please note that when I receive fantastic service I ALWAYS leave positive feedback. I’m one of those people that will fill out the survey in hope that the company requesting it will actually work on their customer service. I’m not saying any of you should do this… It’s just what happens in my world ;)

Anyway, after that piece of INCREDIBLY USEFUL information, in certain aspects, I’m not alone… loads of consumers out there do turn to social to voice their opinions in whatever way or form. In many cases, complaints or bad reviews left in a social forum are really taken seriously because these can often lead to huge business losses for various business types. Companies that just shut their eyes, block their ears and hum loudly to avoid certain channels are already feeling the brunt of the consumer community. JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T SEE IT, DOESN’T MEAN ITS NOT THERE!!! You will ALWAYS see the results of badly managed consumer channels. It’s a bit like the movie “Paranormal Activity” where you see the results of the haunting, but not the haunting its self.

Often companies on certain channels are the target of the “Villager with Pitchfork” scenario. One person, brave enough to post a complaint about a company on a channel, can result in MANY others following suit. Kind of like the villagers chasing Frankenstein into the already flaming windmill (Do what you please with that analogy). Some of them aren’t sure even why they are doing it. If these angry mobs are not kept at bay and these complaints not dealt with, they can devastate a company’s brand VERY FAST. People will nearly always rely on the opinions of others before purchasing products or services from a company. Interesting fact: often companies remove the “Review” capabilities from their pages….#BECAREFUL – This is NOT transparency.

Chapter 2… :D

Some time ago I had a conversation with a person who worked at a fairly large airline company. We got chatting about how complaints are resolved across channels (Yes, I know I’m totally lame) and their response was “Sometimes, every now and then, it’s okay to lose a bag” … ME… “EEERMMM, no its not, that upsets people” (definitely not a direct quote). Person X proceeded to explain to me that loosing said bag was not the issue…. It’s how you RESOLVED the issue. Obviously this couldn’t happen all the time… and yes, frequency is relevant.

LIGHTBULB!!!

Translating that conversation into modern social terminology… Loosing said bag, being honest with the person whose bag has been lost, retrieving said bag and then compensating said person in some manner or form will often turn a massively negative complainant into a brand advocate. Obviously this can’t be a regular thing and companies that do truly have great service and product won’t have to worry about this.

Think about this in the social media sense, you have the ability and OPPORTUNITY to resolve a complaint in a public forum IN FRONT OF EVERYONE and turn groups of people into fans… WOW, that’s an opportunity! Teaching people that they can trust you, as a business to deliver the truth, across the right channel, in a manner that resolves an issue and compensates the complainant is often better than just having general day to day service. People love the “Fighting in the trenches concept” … they want to see companies do what’s right, they want to see businesses getting onto the same level as their consumer base and levelling with them. Another thing that's very important here is the complaint must be solved within the confines of the company brand. The way consumers perceive the brand must align with the complaint resolution process. This will be explained properly in another post.

Personally, I am MORE of a fan of a brand that works alongside me to achieve results. Companies that want to do the right thing and talk to me in the language I understand (demographic) across a channel I prefer. So what if I complain over social… in this day and age, I shouldn’t have to call in and have a whinge, I shouldn’t need to send an email or write a letter. As consumers, it’s our prerogative to communicate in the way that I prefer on the channel I prefer.

Chapter 3…

These days, consumers expect businesses to have the ability to communicate across all channels and manage customer’s interactions and complaints without us having to call in and interact with call centre agents over and over again. We expect an “Omni-channel” (First real Buzz word… yessss) experience.  So what’s the solution here? How can we help companies achieve this for their customer base?

Well, OBVIOUSLY, I’m going to say that Microsoft Dynamics 365 has multiple technical elements that will allow a business the ability to focus their energy on their customer base. BUT… that solves only part of the problem. Look out for my next post on how to achieve this through what’s available within the Microsoft stack. Products such as Microsoft Dynamics Customer Engagement, Microsoft Social Engagement, Adobe, CafeX and even ISV Products such as Click Dimensions can be leveraged to achieve the creation of an Omni-channel customer experience.

For now, the suggestion I’m going to make is that companies place absolute importance on the consumers’ satisfaction as their primary goal. The ability to supply value and cohesive interactions to and with a customer across the preferred channels is of vital importance. The ability to RECOGNISE when a customer is unhappy and change the customers’ opinion can be more valuable than a standard customer experience in some cases. If you take anything away from this long post, that line is the most important. As you change your approach you change your result.

Welcome to the age of the digital consumer!

Standby for the next one :)