Critical Customers Should be Your Best Friend

by Katharina Scholtz

Business Week’s March edition dealt with consumer vigilantes – the people who take a step up and demand better service from companies. While I realise the edition is two months old, I find the topic so worth writing about that I hope you’ll forgive me for covering it a tad late.

In the edition was an article by Jeff Jarvis, entitled Love the Customers Who Hate You, in which he discusses this negative feedback as the key to changing and growing your brand, because “their online gripes…will help you reinvent your business”.

I did a lot of research into this when I was studying and think it would be amazing if this line of thinking spread through more companies.

The basic premise is that complaining customers care enough about your brand to complain – making them an incredible resource of information about the way your brand is perceived. If you tend to their needs, and meet their complaints, there is also huge potential in turning complaining customers into people who value you.

The alternative - leaving the complaints untended - is likely to turn into a reputation crisis. The premise isn’t really rocket science, but undoubtedly a thought that companies traditionally haven’t used the way it should.

The edition discussed two powerful websites that act as directed homes for these kinds of consumers, Com-Cast-Must-Die and Consumerist.com.

Com-Cast-Must-Die was created by the very outspoken Bob Garfield, who is a political advertising analyst and quite a notable figure in the American media realm. He created the site to act as a collective point from which customers could complain, and to which ComCast would hopefully respond.

TheConsumerist.com is a site that provides tips and information for dealing with large companies who are unresponsive to complaints. Two examples of topics featured on the site include an advice article from a professional complaints writer, and a list of a company director’s email addresses.

Both sites have been used by individuals to get better results, but I could find little in terms of reports about massive change in customer service delivery. The fact that Com-Cast-Must-Die.com is being driven by a public figure has naturally added to its momentum, and made it possible for the numerous blogs and complaints to be accessed from one central point.

Having an external complaints hub would hardly be any company’s ideal situation, but it seems it took a mass organised site to wake ComCast up to the free consumer research available to them online.

As marketers, online or off, the lesson we can learn here is that listening to and prioritizing feedback from complaining customers can teach us about weak points. Ensuring that your customers feel valued enough to keep talking to you directly should be the goal of every company.

Can you say ORM?
 

2008/06/05 | permalink | comments (4) | trackbacks (0)

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