In a recent blog post, Seth Godin reminds us that “just because he’s angry,” doesn’t mean that a customer is right or well-informed. When we’re dealing with a customer or a customer review (or neighbor or politician), it’s wise to remember that emotion doesn’t always spring from the truth. Anger may also be the product of “fear, confusion, and well-told stories” and ignorance too.
There are some customers who will always be angry — you won’t be able to change their minds about your business or transform them from being critics to raving fans. The best you can do is listen to them, offer whatever help and information you can, and then try to avoid customers like that one in the future.
One of the very best benefits associated regular customer surveys is the opportunity to identify those angry customers who are angry for no good reason. At least you know who not to call for a reference! You can also try to identify the characteristics of those angry customers and use that information to turn down work from similar customers in the future. After you’ve been in business for awhile, you usually learn to identify the high-maintenance/low reward customers, and regular customer surveys make that learning curve a lot steeper.
These “always angry” people are also a great reason to collect online customer reviews and recommendations and establish a business process to do that. If you please the great majority of your customers and you ask your fans to leave online reviews and recommendations, the occasional rant of an “always angry” customer will just make the good reviews more credible to most prospective customers. Almost everyone has had to deal with a ranting lunatic, and most people won’t fault you or your business if you tangle with one every now and then.
Need help in surveying your customers and setting up a process to collect great customer reviews? Call Rust Reviews for help in dealing with angry customers too.
