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  1. #1

    Top Tip from Business Advisor - Encourage Complaints?

    I was having a lengthy chat yesterday over lunch with my Gateway business advisor and she happened to mention that i should "encourage clients to complain", My thinking on this logic was to help me improve my services provided to them and find out what your clients REALLY want.

    Her logic was actually very different, being experienced as she is, with 12 years in the Advertising and Marketing world she said that it would actually help to get word about your business out more and entice more curious minds to visit the site and be even more interested in trying out our services.

    Kind of like "A satisfied customer will tell 1 person, where a dissatisfied customer will tell 12", She explained this would actually be more or less the same as word of mouth advertising.

    Now i hardly tend to disagree with her but feel on this one i must, Wont customers who are reffered to my site by the dissatisfied customer be visiting with a negative mindset of our Company and Services?

    Im looking for people to discuss this as i did read once on WHT that "Good publicity brought a company a few good signups, but when a horrible review was published they were run off their feet with signups" Im trying to find that thread just to quote it here....

    Any ideas on this logic?? (Im not actually interested in asking my customers to complain though )

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    na
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    256
    I would consider there is not perfect answer to whether your experienced advisor is right or those experienced web hosters are right. Even I don't guarantee a particular marketing model will work for each client.

    I would say if 1 customer complains and elaborate. That will definitely make alot others curious about your service. If your site looks professional and your service is actually top grade, you get the customer through such publicity. However, if you see a post of negative feedback with 1,2 or even 10 others agree to that. I am sure the technique of using complaints as a marketing tool backfires.

    So the decision of whether to do it or not lies completely on you. A general advice would be to launch a marketing compaign only when you are confident to produce results and you must know your stuff well before selling them. A backfire will cost you more harm than no advertisment.

    my 2 pences

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    Australia (Crikey)
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    2,271
    my 2 pences
    Pences? lol....

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    407
    Your advisors idea is very interesting and has solid merit. Many times a person that complains a lot is not always the most well liked and if they tell 12 people (or a forum) about it I would not be suprised if people take what he says with reservation and they end up checking out your site because of it. Also if this person who complains a lot links your site to a forum that could move you up in the search engines.

    Now if your service really is bad and people that do not normally complain start to complain about your site then you got some problems.

    that is
    Alvin

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Houston, TX
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    OK so I think what you need are some really outrageous complaint stories that would leave people thinking (1) you actually did the right thing, (2) the person complaining is a jerk and (3) they feel sorry for you having to deal with such a jerk so they'll go sign up.

    (All the above in jest, stated plainly so as to be a red "don't go here" flag).

    In all seriousness I'm sure there's real merit to encouraging people to speak plainly so you can find out what they really wish you had or did.

    Tom
    http://www.dynamis.net
    A small domain host focusing on personalized service.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    1,135
    Of course it is always best to try to keep everyone happy. However, I tend to agree
    with this theory.

    How many times do we all buy from companies like Cingular, AT&T, BellSouth, Microsoft,
    AOL, Ford, GM, Toyota, etc. We do it all the time.

    We know they get complaints, but we buy anywhere... and we hear their names all the
    time both negative and positive.
    ---
    Dan Ushman
    Co-founder & CMO
    SingleHop, Inc.

  7. #7
    A well controlled complaints issue could work - but it's something that you really have to be very careful on how to handle it.

    For example, some hosts here shine with maturity and professionalsm when faced with irate customers slamming their services publicly on WHT.

    Others lose their cool and potential custom with it.

    As with many things in business, the whole issue is one of risk and risk assessment - is it a risk you need to take, and are the consequences of not going to plan worth the taking of said risk?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    UK
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    210
    Hi,

    This is an interesting theory, but one thing's bugging me: How would you actually get your customers to complain publicly? ie. email them all and ask them to go post nasty reviews on every forum they can find?

    TIA

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    5,460
    Originally posted by djstonefish
    Hi,

    This is an interesting theory, but one thing's bugging me: How would you actually get your customers to complain publicly? ie. email them all and ask them to go post nasty reviews on every forum they can find?

    TIA
    Yes.

    Please don't take me seriously : )

  10. #10
    I dont think she really meant for me to ask my customers to complain.

    But if the logic truly works, then, when you have a customer who threatens to make your life hell by posting bad reviews on every forum he can find just because you wont give him more space on his free account, you can finally stand up to them and say "go ahead"

    AND if the logic works, the only thing he will be doing is bringing you some well needed up-front word of mouth advertising.

    never had a bad complaint yet, so i honestly have no figures to go on, but it would be good to hear from other who have

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    210
    This is a serious point to me as I have experienced this, hence why I asked such a serious sounding question.

    I had a full page "watchdog" style article written on my company and printed in an industry / general web mag here in the UK and the month it was published was actually the best month for sales I'd ever had (at the time) as I turned the article around and made it a success story. So on this basis I would tend to agree with the original posters theory.

    HTH

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Duluth MN
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    3,863
    I remember seeing a post a while back about how whenever EV1Servers or Nocster had a complaint here, they would get 10 signups, and whenever there was a praise, they would get 1-2 signups.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    210
    Originally posted by amish_geek
    I remember seeing a post a while back about how whenever EV1Servers or Nocster had a complaint here, they would get 10 signups, and whenever there was a praise, they would get 1-2 signups.
    Wow, Burst must be over-flowing with signups at the moment then.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Nevada, US
    Posts
    5,550
    That's not quite accurate, but there is an old saying "any advertising is good advertising"...

    But sales are definately better without the complaints...
    We have not had many in the past 4-5 weeks, and April is looking to be our best sales month ever so far...
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