“If none of your customers are complaining, start worrying…”

I can’t say I’d ever anticipated posting an article about trying to increase complaints from customers, but Entrepreneur.com has come through with another information-filled customer service article.

Quoting Jeanne Rinaldo, vice president of relationship management at Integrated Loan Services:

In my experience, I’ve found it’s foolish to assume that silence from your customers is a good thing. It’s the quiet clients who leave. They’re the ones who don’t make a fuss about problems—they let their complaints build up to the point that they think it’s easier to leave than attempt to fix all that’s wrong.

If you’re interested in making sure your customers aren’t doing a quiet disappearing act, read the full article: Getting Customers to Complain

Reading through BusinessWeek’s primer on customer service, I was delighted to discover a list of “magic words” that make customers happy. I think I may put a few of these on post-its and scatter them about my office so they’re always handy:

• How can I help?
  Customers want the opportunity to explain in detail what they want and need. Too often, business owners feel the desire or the obligation to guess what customers need rather than carefully listening first. By asking how you can help, you begin the dialogue on a positive note.
• Monday means Monday.
  Your customers are waiting to hear you say “I deliver on time.” The business that consistently does so is a rarity and will be remembered.
• I appreciate your business.
  This means more than a simple “Thanks for the order.” Genuine appreciation involves follow-up calls, offering to answer questions, and making sure everything is performing satisfactorily.

  read the primer…

Remember the good old days when our customers’ biggest complaints involved the site taking too long to download? Business Week Online has published the results of a customer survey and found that error messages are the problem these days, and that more than a third of your customers will abandon your site the moment they get one.

The top three complaints:

1. Error Messages: 40%
2. Confusing Navigation: 37%
3. Getting Trapped in an Endless Loop: 31%

Oh, and slow download times? A miniscule 3% of the customers surveyed mentioned it!

Read the full article