The Complaints Iceberg

For every one person who formally complains to a company, how many others will hear about it?

Well, the first scary fact is that for every one person who does complain, 25 unhappy customers won't bother. They will simply walk away from you, not tell you about their problem or issue with you and will go off and tell other people instead. And they're unlikely to do business with you again!

What happens next? Well, those 25 people will tell 10 people, who in turn will tell 5 others. And many of these people will decide not to do business with you, too.

The answer to the question at the beginning of this post, from research undertaken by TARP Research is that an average of 1,560 people will hear about at least one of these unhappy customers' experiences.

Complaints are a gift. They are a free gift to you in your business from a customer who has the courtesy to bring to your attention some aspect of your business that is not up to scratch or has broken down on this occasion. And if we treat the complaint as a gift, thank our customers for that gift and go the extra mile to look after them and put it right, that customer will usually become more loyal and an advocate of your business.

Of course, the best thing to do is to avoid complaints in the first place. And if we can help you do that by helping you to improve customer service through mystery shopping in your business, then please feel free to get in touch with us.

Have a fantastic weekend!