Why Complain?
If you don't receive the service you expected, if the product you receive isn't what you ordered, if the experience you encountered was disappointing, I wonder if you do anything about it?
Some people believe it is their civic duty to complain. For altruistic reasons they feel that by providing feedback to a company that's performed poorly, suggesting improvements will improve experiences for future customers. This might be through completing a customer satisfaction survey, comment card or writing a lengthy letter of complaint.
Others do nothing at all; either because they can't be bothered or believing that it will not make any difference: time wasted.
There are those whose behaviour varies depending on what they are buying, how much they are spending and how important the purchase was for them.
Social media can provide anonymity and a much wider circle of "friends" with whom to engage in word of mouth.
Sometimes, complaining can result in you feeling more pleased with how a company responds to you than if nothing had gone wrong in the first place.
I wonder what you do when dissatisfied? Does social media play any part in your behaviour? Have you complained online via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or simply left a review on TripAdvisor? Were you encouraged by the response you received or left feeling despondent and feeling service is depressingly bad?
Do you think complaining is worth the effort?
Great post! Individual employees make mistakes but if the company responds adequately to a complaint it definitely makes a big difference in not damaging the reputation of the company in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteAn email/post makes me feel better when angry even if no response because you get to at least vent- having said that, I normally cool off before I get around to writing something so I end up not doing it!
Thank you for your comment. I agree - company responses are extremely important and also that if you wait to make your complaint the desire to do so can pass. If so, maybe that means we weren't really that bothered in the first place?!
ReplyDeleteI think that complaints are an important source of information for a company because they provide free information about the product or service sold. Information about the quality of service and product could be costly and sometimes they provide biased information. A customer indeed, complaints for free and provide accurate details of what went wrong so the company exactly knows where to act. Indeed I usually don't complaint when something goes wrong because I feel that it is not worth.
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