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Thought for the day...
Free daily management tips from our team of trainers - courtesy of the In-House Training Company
Thought for the day
The full archive of free daily management tips from our team of trainers.
Download ‘Encourage your customers to complain’
What?Actually invite complaints?
Certainly!
Remember: only about a quarter of customers at the very most who are unhappy with you will actually let you know. The rest will let all their friends know about it and start buying from someone else. However, if you could encourage this missing 75 per cent to bring their problems straight to you, you would have a chance to solve them and you would probably keep their custom.
Don’t fool yourself that just because people don’t complain they’re happy.
Try this exercise: ask ten different people to name an example of poor or indifferent customer service or salesmanship that they have experienced in the last ten years. When they have finished describing their example, ask them simply, ‘What did you do about it? Did you complain?’, the answer for most of them will probably be ‘Nothing’.
How do you increase complaints? Put comment cards everywhere, free phone numbers on everything and talk to customers, ex-customers and non-customers at every opportunity. Make opportunities – hang around – phone them – write to them – anything – just get more complaints.
Oh yes, and act on whatever those complaints tell you and don’t forget to say ‘thank you’ to customers who do complain – consider it as free management consultancy!
© The author
This thought has been taken from Graham’s book ‘Companies don’t succeed, people do!’ Graham delivers outstanding sales training – click here for details of some of his programmes.
Previous Thoughts for the day
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‘Encourage your customers to be unreasonable’ - read more
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‘Give your customers the benefit of the doubt’
- read more
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‘Encourage your customers to complain’
- read more
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‘Being good enough, isn’t good enough – give customers a reason to be faithful’
- read more
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‘How to keep a customer for life – give them lots of reasons to stay’
- read more
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‘Close the customer service department’
- read more
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‘Customer satisfaction is everybody’s job’
- read more
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‘Customer satisfaction is not satisfactory’
- read more
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‘The answer is – yes!’
- read more
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‘What are others doing?’
- read more
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‘How can I take better care of my customers?’
- read more
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‘Every sales call is a free market research opportunity’
- read more
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‘The customer isn’t always right’
- read more
- ‘Give your customers more than they pay for’
- read more
- ‘Wash your dirty laundry in private’
- read more
- ‘It’s OK to spend money’
- read more
- ‘Expect the unexpected’
- read more
- ‘Have a NIZ!’
- read more
- ‘Dump trivia’
- read more
- ‘Less is more’
- read more
- ‘Speed up routine tasks’
- read more
- ‘Stop doing other people’s work’
- read more
- ‘Ask questions’
- read more
- ‘Take control!’
- read more
- ‘Listen!’
- read more
- ‘You don’t have to answer the question’
- read more
- ‘Shut up!’
- read more
- ‘Be receptive’
- read more
- ‘Go to the balcony’
- read more
- ‘Think before you speak’
- read more
- ‘You can’t stare – but you must watch!’
- read more
- ‘Don’t be predictable’
- read more
- ‘KISS’
- read more
- ‘Aim high’
- read more
- ‘Say “No.” ’
- read more
© The In-House Training Company.