Customers Complaints: Which Customers Complain the Most?

Customer complaints are part and parcel of any business, brand and thus it becomes imperative for you as a business owner, Manager to know more about it. 

Today’s article is going to explore customer complaints from a different angle, an angle that will help you understand what type of customers are more likely to complain, what type of customer won’t bother to complain or less likely to complain.

We can categorize such customers into following three categories

1.      Active Customers

2.      Expressive Customers

3.      Neither Active Nor Expressive Customers (NANEC)

Active Customers

Characteristics of Active Customers

1.      Instead of complaining such customers look for ways to fix the problem

2.      Actively engages with the brand, business to solve the issue

3.      Are cool as cucumber, hardly lose their temper, little or no signs of stress

4.      More likely to give repeat business even after going through some tough situation

5.      Can help you gain better insight about your product/service features, attributes, shortcomings etc.

In a nutshell such customers are less likely to complain.

Fact:  In case of complaints, 70% of your customers will give you repeat business if you resolve their complaints successfully ⁽¹⁾.

Expressive Customers

Characteristics of Expressive Customers

1.      They will unload a truck full of emotions

2.      They don’t listen

3.      They will threat you in weird ways

4.      They will focus on what is lost instead of what can be recovered, they don’t look for ways to fix things, don’t like to engage like Active Customers.

5.      They will complain the most as they see complaining as a way to vent out their negative emotions, anger, stress.

6.      Least likely to  give repeat business after an incident

7.      Once they get angry, you will have fat chance to convince them

8.      They are more likely to get involved in negative word of mouth

9.      Trouble is their middle name

Here, read this article to deal with such customers effectively Two Step: How To Deal With Angry Customers

Fact: A study conducted by HBR has shown that customers who had negative experience with a brand, company got involved in negative word of mouth, sharing it with 10 or more people⁽²⁾.

Fact: Studies have shown that positive word of mouth is the driving force behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions and that a 10 percent lift in word of mouth increases sales by up to 1.5 percent ⁽³⁾.

Neither Active Nor Expressive Customers (NANEC)

Characteristics of NANEC

1.      These are the shy type, the quiet type

2.      They won’t complain because to them complaining results in more stress, more trouble, more time waste.

3.      They won’t tell you that they hate you (Read: Customer Anger or Hate: What would you prefer)

4.      Least likely to give you return business after an incident

5.      They are also more likely to do negative word of mouth

Fact: In America 96% dissatisfied customers don’t share their complaints with the company/brand/business ⁽⁴⁾.

Fact: According to a study vast majority of dissatisfied customers don’t complain ⁽⁵⁾.

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References:

1.      http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/07/bad-customer-service.html

2.      Harvard Business Review, “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman, July 2010.

3.      http://www.forbes.com/sites/mckinsey/2014/02/14/can-a-goldfish-show-you-how-to-excite-your-customers

4.      http://www.1stfinancialtraining.com/Newsletters/trainerstoolkit1Q2009.pdf

5.      Chebat, J.-C., Davidow, M. and Codjovi, I. (2005), “Silent voices: why some dissatisfied consumers fail to complain”,Journal of Service Research, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 328-42.