Just read Michelle Golden’s post on sending out mass mailings. I thought it was very funny, and says so much about why we are so turned off by most of the mail we get today.
But most of all, I thought it also shows the value of criticism. I read the other day, that the best thing you can hear as a company is a criticism, because that’s when you have the chance to improve. If you never hear them, you can never get better.
So many times we dismiss them and make excuses for them (like this partner in her story), but a lot of times they can be the most valuable thing we can use to improve our company as a business. The problem is a lot of times our customers don’t tell us what they don’t like about us, or even more often, we discount them when they do.
As Client Services Manager for my firm, I would love to be able to capture them from the clients and figure out a way to go above and beyond in making them happy, and also changing the way we run our business. A bank rep once told me that if they make a customer upset, they have a basket with gift cards to restaurants, movies, Starbucks, etc. I think they ought to go a step further and implement procedures, etc. to make sure that that situation never happens again to the client.
I imagine how I feel as a customer when I am upset about something. I want to rant and rave to all my friends about. But if I’m given something to appease my by the company, I rant and rave to all my friends about how generous they were and how much they made up for their mistake. This makes the company look great- even though they made a mistake.
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