Customer Complaints - Your Free Business Consultants

Customer Complaints - Free Business Consultants!

Bar, hotel or restaurant, at some point you are going to receive a complaint. It's never a nice thing. It can feel intimidating, daunting, unwarranted, malicious, vindictive or just plain silly. Sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in the complaints and forget how many satisfied customers have left without saying a word. Even worse though is to forget that customer complaints are a valuable source of business research - free consultants if you like - telling you how you can improve and generate more money.

There are many reasons why people complain. Some got out of the wrong side of the bed, some are going through a messy divorce and others just want to get something for nothing but most of the people who complain are doing so because they are actually supporters of your product or service and want it to meet or exceed their expectations. Considering that most people won't raise issues or voice their disappointment, people who complain are giving you an opportunity not only to retain their business but also the business of other people who feel the same that you never know about.

Customers that believe in you believe that you want to know what went wrong and in telling you they are trusting that you can make it right, they want you to fix the issue. Too often I've seen people offer free food, free drinks, return visits or a refund without actually addressing the issue that was raised. Remember that if one customer has complained about an issue you can pretty much bet that there are others who felt the same. Whilst they might be lost to you, you have a real opportunity to make a real difference to the situation at hand.

Don't shy away from complaints. Remember that first off they are not complaining about you personally, but about a situation, product or service. You are not the issue, in fact, you can be the solution. Listen to what they have to say and give them an opportunity to vent their frustration. Get the facts and then address the problem as it effects the customer. Ultimately you can use this information to fix the underlying cause of the problem in the first place and thereby stop it from happening again in the future.

Lets use a simple example. Perhaps you run a bar and a customer complains about lipstick on his glass. What could you do? Well you could just give him a new drink - this would certainly address the problem as it relates to him. But what if you actually listened to the complaint. How come there was lipstick on the glass? Was it not cleaned properly? Is your glasswasher working correctly? If it's not, maybe it's not taking in enough detergent or maybe its not heating up the water enough. Are your staff checking the glasses before they serve in them? Remember, not only do you have a dissatisfied customer but you have also had to waste stock, all of this is costing you money. If you look to the root of the complaint you can often fix a bigger problem all of which helps ultimately increase you profit line.

If you think about the amount of money you have invested in your business and then in marketing, recruitment, advertising and your product it would be foolish to ignore your consumer. Grow and develop with every complaint. Improve and become more profitable. Ultimately you're the person that gains from customer complaints. If you look at it like this it's suddenly a lot easier to deal with.

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