How to Stop Customers from Complaining

Skewering the practice as "social media-encouraged entitlement," a new article urges individuals to "spare us" from their customer service complaints on Twitter.

Citing various examples of celebrity "grandstanding" about customer experience issues on Twitter, the article extends it message to all users who air such issues in the popular social channel.

Explaining that no one—from journalists, to consumer advocacy groups, to politicians—cares about a customer’s poor brand experience, the author ridicules the "assumption that each and every customer service complaint is Twitter-worthy and deserving of public attention."

"They’re not."

Upset that customers apparently leverage their follower counts and social network sizes to make a bigger splash on social media, the article dismisses Twitter complaints as the byproduct of self-centered entitlement.

"Regardless of whether it ‘works,’ using Twitter to publicly complain about your minor issues and inconveniences with a company is extremely obnoxious, explains the article. "The practice smacks of entitlement. Travel delays and cable difficulties are a pain, but, well, what else is new?"

Cutting entitlement programs

Buried under some strange notion that customers complain on Twitter because they feel their issue is more important than those facing others, rather than the more reasonable scenario that each individual complainer simply believes his issue is important and worthy of the brand’s attention, the entitlement argument fails on one major ground:

Customers are entitled to a quality customer experience.

"It's not okay for the cable, airline, cellular, insurance, or banking industries to treat anyone like shit. You're blaming the victims with this article," writes commenter Tom Bouthillet.

In criticizing customers for their sense of "entitlement," and in fact writing off customer service issues as inevitable, the author blatantly ignores the fact that businesses are meant to be serving customers to their liking. When something goes wrong in that experience, brands are not providing customers the experience to which they are entitled, and they assume the entire burden of rectifying the situation.

In an ideal world, organizations would be customer-centric enough to independently notice all customer experience failures and provide proactive resolutions. And if it cannot consistently do that, the brand should at least provide that resolution on a customer’s first direct contact with the organization, whether that entails a phone call, chat session, in-person discussion, e-mail or anything in between.

Unfortunately, brands have been consistently failing on all fronts. That problems perpetually exist speaks to a customer management breakdown; clearly, customer feedback and awareness is not sufficiently driving product development and delivery. That rectification is not being achieved proactively speaks to a further problem; clearly, brands are not welcoming the burden of delivering an elite experience for their customers.

And, far too often, the organization is either unable to—or opposed to—solving the problem on the first contact (or even the second, third and fourth direct contact). Far too many call centers have become "customer deflection centers," providing disgruntled customers with the runaround while leadership insulates itself from the firestorm of disappointment.

The situation leaves customers without conventional means of accessing the experience to which they are entitled, and as a result, customers must consider new strategies for getting what they deserve (let alone what they want). Social can sometimes remedy the situation.

By consistently refusing to deliver for customers in a support/service situation, brands are signaling that they do not fear any harm from their refusal. They assume all customers are like the BuzzFeed article author and will temper their feelings of frustration with an acceptance that bad experiences are inevitable.

If the customer support mindset does not drive it to provide satisfaction, then perhaps the marketing mindset will. If customers can position an experiential failure in a way that risks damaging the brand’s reputation and marketability, they might stand a better chance of pressuring brands to provide the service to which they are entitled.

Consider my recent experience with Ally Bank. After multiple, heated calls with the financial institution, I was no closer to a resolution. Aware that Ally Bank did not care enough to solve my issue in private, I figured it might be worth Tweeting about my frustrations. The Bank might be inclined ignore my needs, but does an online bank—for which customer service is often the competitive advantage—want the entire world knowing it is doing so?

That effort was not about me attempting to be a star or me attempting to position my needs above those of others. It was pursuing a last resort for getting the experience and resolution to which I was entitled. And, in the process, it was informing other customers of the kind of experience they might receive upon signing up for the bank.

Will some customers bypass the call center support process and jump directly into social complaining? Sure, but can anyone blame them for doing so given the stigma—and their personal experiences—associated with traditional support channels? Will some customers milk social platforms to maximize exposure around their complaint? Sure, but if those kinds of antics and grandstanding are effective, can anyone blame them?

And let’s not forget, the brand is the one that gave the customer a reason to complain in the first place.

And there lies the biggest problem with how many brands—and the BuzzFeed article author—are approaching social customer complaints. Rather than recognizing that it was their failure that led to an angry customer in the first place, they identify the complainer as the problem. We, as a brand, were not wrong for delivering service below expectations. The customer, meanwhile, is a self-righteous, grandstanding jerk for taking the issue public.

While social media monitoring is essential, even the push towards that practice risks muddling the true issue associated with customer complaints. Brands are, again, concerning themselves with the problem of managing a frustrated customer’s viral negativity rather than the problem that actually caused the outrage.

In the status quo, yes, social media complaints can be a nuisance. And, yes, social media monitoring is essential. But a brand committed to customer-centricity will be address experiential challenges—the root of the problem—and render both issues moot. Customers cannot complain on social media if the brand gives them nothing about which to complain.

If people don’t care, then it shouldn’t matter. Except they do.

With social media providing customers with unprecedented insight into brand behavior, they no longer need to let poor customer service catch them by surprise. They now can access accounts of real customer experiences, and they have a crystal-clear window into how brands respond to those accounts.

The market’s interest in that—and willingness to act on the insights—is why customers feel so empowered to share their experiences and why brands are so protective of their social reputations. If social customer complainers were indeed pariahs, their accounts would never go viral, and brands would never feel any pressure to act.

Perhaps the BuzzFeed writer—and perhaps millions of others—are fine tolerating bad customer experiences because "what else is new!" But as an empowered customer with access to unprecedented amounts of information to peruse and merchants to choose, I do not have to tolerate my expectations being ignored.

I share customer experience stories on social media not because I consider myself more important than others but because I know I am important to businesses. And if they do not treat me with the correct importance, and have systematically demonstrated that my private frustration does not compel them to act, my only option is to find another means of conveying my importance.

If my words go viral and warn other people about what they will encounter from a given brand, then the situation is win-win.

Oh, and by the way

You know that whole "be careful what you wish for?" Seems pretty interesting that the same brands—and edgy bloggers—who want you to relentlessly share rave reviews and news of positive experiences on social scold those who disseminate negative feedback.