The power of complaints, and the public awareness of that power, is growing.

Guest Post : “Complaints are one of the most immediate and free sources of customer insight available to businesses every day” Andrew Aldred, mycustomerfeedback.com

by Will Corry on January 14, 2013 in Latest News, Media, Research, Retail, Rock 'n Roll

Andrew Aldred, head of marketing at mycustomerfeedback.com, comments on research from the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) revealing that consumers are more likely to complain about grievances with a firm than five years ago, despite experiencing fewer problems.

“The survey by the ICS echoes a trend towards increased consumer expectations and reduced tolerance – consumers making a point of complaining about anything and everything. This trend creates the ‘perfect storm’ for businesses, with the pressure of snowballing complaints leading to a marketing nightmare and resulting brand damage that can see revenues falling. Meanwhile, the power of complaints, and the public awareness of that power, is growing.

The flip side however, is that complaints are one of the most immediate and free sources of customer insight available to businesses every day. The increased level of complaints that the ICS has revealed means there is more potential customer feedback for a company to utilise, yet these complaints are often overlooked and not utilised efficiently.

Companies are in danger of creating a situation where the marketing department is struggling to make sense of customer grievances whilst the customer service team is struggling to deal with the quantities of complaints from aggrieved customers. Businesses need to align customer service teams with the marketing department to close this communication gap in order to better utilise information available from complaints.

Companies that embrace complaints and evolve their businesses based on this valuable feedback will soon begin to see the gap growing between themselves and their competitors that remain bogged down in information silos.”

Andrew Aldred, head of marketing at mycustomerfeedback.com

Tags: aggrieved customers., Andrew Aldred, complaints, ICS, Institute of Customer Service, mycustomerfeedback.com Print article

via themarketingblog.co.uk