A Complaint Is a Gift, 3rd Edition: How to Learn from Critical Feedback and Recover Customer Loyalty

The third edition of this bestseller (over 275,000 copies sold) builds on the tested formula that helps organizations recognize the value of complaints using updated examples and concepts in the age of COVID-19.

The first edition of A Complaint Is a Gift introduced the revolutionary notion that customer complaints are not annoyances to be dodged, denied, or buried but are instead valuable pieces of feedback—not to mention your best bargain in market research. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively strengthen products, service style, and market focus. Most importantly, complaints that are well received create customer loyalty.

This new edition condenses the tried and true eight-step formula into a tighter, more efficient three-step formula. From her work with clients, the author has updated industry-specific complaint examples and added in new concepts, such as a process that enables employees to handle complaints with increased emotional resilience—something that is sorely needed since dealing with increasingly difficult customers is a common occurrence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Handling complaints doesn’t have to be a negative, soul-crushing experience. Janelle Barlow gives the right tools to treat each of them as a source of innovative ideas that can transform your business.

Janelle Barlow is president and owner of All Out Performance and has decades of experience as a consultant, executive coach, speaker, and author. Her past clients include World Bank Group, HP, and DHL. She has served as president for the Global Speakers Federation and the National Speakers Association chapters in both Northern California and New Mexico, and she is a partner with the multinational training and consulting group MoveMinds. Barlow’s numerous awards include the Legend of the Speaking Industry, CSP from the National Speakers Association, and Consultant of the Year from both TMI International and TACK International. She is the bestselling author of A Complaint Is a Gift (over 275,000 copies sold).