How to Find Your Customer's 'Why'

Today’s competitive marketplace drives the need for higher levels of service while reducing costs.

According to TARP’s "Understand Customer Behavior and Complaints" Report, for every service contact a company receives from a customer, there are 5 – 10 other customers who experience the same problem but don’t make contact.

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This is a terrible exposure for your business. Even though they don’t complain to you, make no mistake, they do complain. They tell anyone who will listen and sometimes as many as 14 people. Numerous studies have shown that upset customers who do not contact you directly are far more likely to stop doing business with you.

One way to address these particular customers is to understand their "why." Why do customers call you in the first place? It’s quite possible that if you drill down to the root cause of your customer contacts, you will be able to pinpoint operational improvements necessary to eliminate service issues that lead to initial dissatisfaction.

It’s a given that when personnel are well trained, customer satisfaction and retention (of both customers and employees) increases. Employees can handle the customers who call in, but what about those who don’t make the call?

What can you do? By analyzing the root cause of your vocal customers (who, of course, represent the silent ones), you can identify problems experienced across your customer base. By ascertaining the reasons for customer contacts—and taking action to correct or eliminate those causes—you can reduce incoming call volume and eliminate the issues of dissatisfaction from the customers who don’t make that call.

Your complaint calls are truly gifts. They help you reach those who haven’t called in by giving you the data/information needed to find the cause from those who do call you.

Find your customer’s ‘why’ and be proactive in eliminating the origin of their dissatisfaction.