A Complaint Is a Gift: Using Customer Feedback as a Strategic Tool

A customer complaint is the most valuable source of feedback you can receive to improve your business. This new and improved second edition guides you through responding to complaints, taking advantage of when complaints become personal, and how you, too, can complain constructively and effectively.
 
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—in fact, they’re your best bargain in market research. Customer complaints can give businesses a wake-up call when they’re not achieving their fundamental purpose: meeting customer needs. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively strengthen products, service style, and market focus. Most importantly, complaints create a moment of truth when a customer who is deciding whether to return can be made even more loyal.
 
Using numerous real-life examples, authors Janelle Barlow and Claus Møller show precisely how to handle complaints in a way that brings benefit to your organization and satisfaction to your customers–even when you have to say no. The second edition features two brand-new chapters on receiving and responding to complaints online; a new section on how to deal with and take advantage of complaints that are directed at your personally; and, turning the tables, a section on how you can complain constructively and effectively. And throughout, the text has been heavily revised, with a wealth of new examples, tools, and strategies.

Janelle Barlow is president and owner of TMI US. She is the coauthor of Emotional Value, Smart Videoconferencing, and Branded Customer Service.

Claus Møller is the founder of TMI. He has written several books on management, which together have sold more than three million copies.