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With Compliments

Many articles have been written about the need for businesses to learn new lessons from the complaints they receive. But how many features have you seen that encourage you to act upon compliments?

There is a key lesson for Insight teams here. If a customer is sufficiently happy to take the trouble to send you a message of thanks, you need to take notice of it. Customer bouquets can help you by: 
  • Highlighting the products and/or services that you are getting right
  • Boosting morale amongst your team members
  • Leading to possible referrals (if actively encouraged)
However, how easy do you make it for customers to thank you? Most efficient businesses (and Insight groups) are geared up for handling customer complaints, but very few have any co-ordinated policy for handling compliments!
 
Thanks, but no thanks…
In a recent article in Market Leader, Paul Walker reported on a survey of 100 leading consumer brands who were sent a ‘thank you’ message. None of these firms provided an easy way of saying thanks. Many of the companies didn’t even respond to the messages – and therefore missed a golden opportunity to consolidate the customer’s loyalty. Some were confused about how to respond.
 
He also quotes a classic response from Dell, who received a note of thanks from a customer who was delighted with his new flat panel screen. They responded: “Thank you for contacting us about your issue… I sense you are not getting optimal performance from your system… I’m committed to resolve this issue with the monitor.”
 
This is by no means an isolated case. Paul Walker says that although some top performers send a personalised response to a congratulatory message, many lower performing companies send a standard letter of apology instead! But are we any better as Insight teams? Do we focus more on measuring complaints than compliments? Do we check how easy our companies make it for people to thank us or compliment us? This should be an important part of the feedback we give. 
 
Learn from your good points!
One of your aims when gathering feedback should be not only to look at what has been going wrong, but also to explore the key aspects of your service that customers like. You can then make a case for introducing some new ideas that will help to raise your recommendation levels. Paul Walker makes four suggestions in his article: 
  • Carry out an audit of your services and find out how many customers tell you about their positive experiences.
  • Make sure you thank customers when they thank you – this tiny bit of recognition increases the likelihood that they will spread good news about your team.
  • Thank the staff involved when a thank you message has been received: this all helps to boost morale.
  • Take things to the next level by making customers who express their thanks into VIPs - perhaps offering them special help or giving them some free advice.
Insight should be as much about promoting advocacy as it is about identifying when things go wrong.
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