Why Customer Complaints Are a Good Thing

When you hear “customer complaints,” you probably don’t think, “Yay! Now I can learn more about my institution and potentially turn an angry customer into a happy one! This is exciting!” 

No, you probably think something along the lines of, “Oh no, not again. I’m going to cry in the corner now because I just wish our institution could make everyone happy.” 

While the first option may not be your go-to reaction, it should be! Customer complaints shouldn’t be scary or make you feel bad. In fact, they can be a cause for celebration, because now you have the chance to improve your institution and respond to that customer. 

Here are some reasons why customer complaints are a good thing.

Answering complaints creates customer advocacy

What cooler way to spread the word about your financial institution than to have a group of customers telling their friends all about how quickly, respectfully, and helpfully your institution responded to their complaint?

If you can get customers to speak positively about your institution even after they’ve experienced a problem, you must be doing something right. 

There’s a lot more to creating customer advocates than simply responding to their complaints. Take a good look at your customer’s entire journey and see if there’s anywhere that can be improved. Are customers greeted warmly when they walk into a branch? Can customers easily find the services your institution offers and make changes to their accounts when necessary? As you actively search for ways to improve your customers’ experience and turn them into customer advocates, chances are you’ll end up with fewer avoidable complaints. 

When you truly care about your customers, they're much more likely to tell their friends and family about their experience while focusing on the positive rather than the negative. 

The way you respond to customer complaints can lead to more advocates of your institution, which can then lead to more customers. That complaint doesn’t seem so bad, now, does it?

(Check out this article to learn what may be stopping your institution from responding to customer complaints.)

You have the chance to turn unhappy customers into happy customers

Have you ever experienced a problem with a business and had it resolved quickly and efficiently? Maybe you were given a gift card for your next visit. Maybe you received a heartfelt apology from the manager. Maybe you were given a little something extra to make up for the mistake. If this has happened, and if you could tell that the business really cared about you and what you’d experienced, then chances are you walked away much happier than when you started. 

Customer complaints are the perfect opportunity to take a negative experience and turn it into a positive one—or at least a neutral one. The way you respond to your customer will make a big difference here.

The first step to turning unhappy customers into happy ones is to make that customer feel heard. Even if their complaint is…to put it lightly…a little bit silly, you still need to show that customer that you care about their experience and want to help them. And if there’s truly nothing you can do, you can still get your point across without coming off as uncaring. 

Customers who feel heard are much more likely to give your institution another chance. 

Responding helps you stand out from your competition

How many financial institutions do you think take the time to respond to every customer complaint? Probably not many. While being good at responding to customer complaints isn’t exactly something you should advertise, it’s something that may benefit your institution with no marketing or promotion. (Don’t you just love when that happens?) 

When a customer sees that you’ve responded to their complaint kindly, helpfully, and respectfully, they will likely be impressed. If that customer has had poor experiences with other financial institutions or businesses in your community, then they will see that your institution is different and truly wants to help them. This will help your institution stand out from the competition and, hopefully, lead to longtime customers advocating for your business. 

You’ll learn where your institution can improve

While seeing a complaint come through might make you feel like you haven’t done enough to give your customers a good experience, this is your chance to take that feedback and improve your institution. What other channel is going to give you actionable feedback that your customers really care about?

No, not every complaint will be valid. Some people would complain about anything, even puppies wearing sparkly sweaters. But most complaints are sincere and simply reflect your customer having a poor experience that you may be able to fix. If you notice a trend in complaints, it’s time to take action and fix whatever is bothering your customers. For example, maybe several customers complain about poor service at a specific branch. Instead of taking this complaint personally or ignoring it, investigate! Maybe it's a single employee with a poor attitude. Maybe the branch is experiencing bad morale due to disorganized leadership. Maybe employees feel isolated from corporate. Once you know what’s causing the complaints, take steps to fix it. 

Paying attention to and acting on complaints is a great way to improve your institution and become even better than you were yesterday. Your customers care enough about your institution and their experience to comment on it and try to get some help. The least you can do is respond respectfully and do your best to turn that customer into a happy one. 

How Kadince takes your customer complaint tracking to the next level

Saying that you’ll respond to every customer complaint is all well and good, but this task becomes much harder when you’re juggling complaints between email, social media, online forms, and written comment cards. 

Kadince software helps you respond to and track customer complaints in one central location, so you aren’t left wondering if Bob already responded. Kadince makes it easy to track complaint data, route complaints to the proper reviewer, find trends, build reports, and reduce risk. This ensures complaints follow your internal controls, are reviewed by the proper people, contain the right documentation, and don’t get lost. And you’ll always be ready for an exam because your complaint data is stored in one place and can be quickly searched. 

The Kadince Feedback dashboard

Now you can spend more time giving your customers a good experience and less time managing complaint data. 

Schedule a demo to learn more about managing your institution’s complaints with Kadince.

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