How Promoting Customer Complaints Can Be Helpful for Online Businesses

For some people, it hits hard when a customer is not satisfied or complains about the value of the product or the service.

But customer complaints or dissatisfied customers can really be helpful in optimizing online shops. Online and multichannel retailers can count themselves lucky when customers complain.

That may sound strange at first, but it is actually so. Because complaints show where the problem lies internally and where there is potential for improvement.

Many big businesses promote customer reviews and feedback programs in order to enhance user experience and customer satisfaction. Along with all that complaint management is also necessary.

What is customer complaint management?

Before we go ahead, you should know about customer complaint management. It is like that equipment that forecasts natural disasters like storms and hurricanes but if properly done, a company can save itself, its customers, and its reputation from washing away.

Customer complaint management offers methods and ways to deal with the complaints of the customers.

In any business, customers are the main and they should be kept happy. So, the proper maintenance of relations and problem-solving strategies with customers can make them stay at your product or services.

But above all that, customer complaint management shall allow empowers companies to know what mistakes are making and what are the needs of their target market so, they can change such things in the products or services. 

How can businesses encourage customer complaints?

Here are some ways how dealers can strategically optimize their business through customer complaints.

1. Encourage customer complaints

Promoting complaints can really be helpful for the business. Often, only a few of the dissatisfied customers complain. Because some customers may simply be afraid of conflicts, will not find a suitable communication channel, or do not expect a satisfactory answer.

Speak openly that negative feedback is also welcome. To do this, offer different channels.

Customers should be getting satisfactory answers from you. For instance, an online business can also offer customer support services where use customers can raise complaints and get their issues solved.

2. Create structures

Define in advance clearly who is responsible for complaints and who is accountable. Make it clear internally that complaints are a high priority.

Set a binding framework for this. How long can it take to process a complaint?

Also, make sure that the customer is informed about the status of their request at all times. Sometimes taking more time to get complaints solved, customers become more dissatisfied.

3. Respond bindingly

Sincerely regret that the customer is dissatisfied and even if you are innocent. If a mistake has been made in your company, openly admit it.

Develop guidelines on the type of compensation to be used. The first thing a dissatisfied would notice is the behaviour and it can calm his/her furiousness if he/she is angry.

With the assurance of words and response, you can win the customers as well as bring improvements to your service.

4. Assess customer complaints

Customer complaints are a valuable source of information. In order to make optimal use of them, you should evaluate complaints quantitatively and qualitatively.

Maintain your data carefully. Set up a dashboard that enables you to evaluate the data in a meaningful way. Never consider the complaints raised by customers in a negative manner.

5. Optimize your online shop

You have now created a system that systematically promotes complaints, records, and processes, and evaluates them in a structured manner.

The last point is worthless if you do not derive any action from your data. For instance, if we proactively communicate delays in shipping, the number of complaints will be significantly reduced.

What should be done to promote customer feedback?

Here are two of the most important things to promote customer complaints.

These will not only increase customer feedback but will also improve communication with customers so they can have more trust in the company.

1. Approach customer instead of waiting

A company that cares for its customers should ask them if they have faced any queries or trouble while using the product or service of the company. This is one of the basics of complaint management.

This shows that a business cares for the customers and this way you would get honest and real feedback or complaints from the customers. This process can be called the promotion of customer complaints.

When you ask something, customers would know that you are happy to receive criticism and they would put their honest views.

2. Always be there for them

As we said earlier that most of the customers don’t complain because they think they wouldn’t a good reply from the company’s customer service.

So, no matter how customers approach you i.e. call, email, or even via social media, you should respond to them with empathy and make sure you present the solution to them.

Many customers complain to the heads of businesses on Twitter and it has proved effective but before they reach the heads, a proper communication channel must be established where customers get a satisfying responsibility and solution to their complaints.

You have to be available to them qualitatively as well as quantitatively.

So, whenever a customer is given a specific time to resolve their problem, the status of the process must be given to the customer.

Importance of customer complaints

We have already informed you why complaints are helpful for the business to improve its services but there are many more positive sides to this.

1. Reality check for the businesses

Complaints from the customers are obviously a reality check for your company since this way you shall know what are the loopholes in your service that customers don’t like.

2. Helps to understand your target customers

Along with a reality check, you shall know what your target market actually needs so, you can provide it in advance to the next customers and it will not raise any dissatisfaction.

3. Increase communication with customers

While making complaints, customers get in direct contact with the company, and a good response to them helps to improve customer communication as well as customer support service.

4. Build a loyal customer base

Promoting complaints and solving them in a specific time duration will definitely make your customers satisfied. By doing this, you can build a loyal customer for your business who shall never leave you.

Promote customer complaints to help your business

Always keep in mind that if customers are dissatisfied and don’t complain to you, most of them will probably just buy somewhere else in the future and tend to talk badly about you without you being able to react to it.

So, your goal should be to minimize dissatisfaction with your service and not to reduce customer complaints.