When a business gets a complaint about its product or service the immediate thought is to fix the problem, make the customer happy and get on with life.
That’s fair enough but often the cause of the problem isn’t properly investigated. The mistake just disappears, everyone’s happy and we can all pretend it didn’t happen.
Why not take a different approach. Next time a customer complaint arrives fix the problem then launch a full-scale investigation.
Talk to the customer about what went wrong. Talk to the staff involved about how the complaint was handled. Test your processes and people to try to discover where things are breaking down.
Do everything you can to identify the cause of the issue.
When you feel you’ve got to the cause of the problem, meet with your key staff to extract lessons from the incident and decide what processes you will put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The investigation might take some time but it will be worth it – you’ll learn plenty about your business, your people and your product offering.
Get it done – today (or when you get your next complaint!)
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