“How long do you think we’ve been waiting for our burgers?”
It’s one cold Sunday morning and I’m making small talk to kill time as I’m feeling something between ravenous and innards-being-digested ravenous.
“If we’re having this discussion, it’s far too long,” responds my friend.
As minutes turned into trop minutes to an hour, our conversation centres on all the choice words we plan to share about the insanely slow service.
Yet the moment our food arrives, we begin eating, and eventually leave, not a word said to the waitress or the establishment.
But we both knew we would never return.
Most people who are dissatisfied do not complain. In fact, depending on the source, between 60-98% of dissatisfied humans do not complain.
And for those who do, sadly, only about 1/2 of all complaints are resolved to the customer’s satisfaction. This is known as failure escalation. Best case, the customer shrugs off their experience as a fluke. Worst case you find yourself featured by sites like this.
Interestingly, if you respond well to a vocal complainer, their loyalty to you increases. These former complainers often become your best evangelists. Customers who complain and were satisfactorily helped had an 8% increase in loyalty versus those who never had a problem with you.
So rather than treat these people like nuisances, feel warm fuzzy about one. Maybe hug a complainer or two. In any case don’t ignore them or lash back at them!
Having said all this, I guess I’d better get to my long backlog of unanswered developer [Question] emails. Doh!
