Complain or complain?
It's 2012 and I've just become responsible for customer experience at KPN in the consumer market. We want to write a change strategy – one that is not only functional, but above all that appeals and involves real change.
We describe the change from the perspective of the customer and the employee. For the colleagues, we want them to tell enthusiastically and proudly at a birthday party that they work at this telecom company. But where to start? Because if you told them you worked at KPN, you had the guarantee that you would immediately be treated to a drama story at every party. That mechanic this, that call center employee that, or then in the store this... How nice would it be if you could solve the problem?
That's why, together with my team, we came up with the KPN Ambassador app. In it, the employee could immediately report the problem that came to his or her attention. So far, so good. The app was built, the processes connected to it and now it had to be tested with complaints from practice. As a true ambassador, I made a LinkedIn post, introduced the app and asked my network: what issues do you have that I can solve for you? The stories came in in no time. Then and then this and that had happened. I found no less than forty complaints in the comments.
I contacted everyone and while talking to these people I found out that in 39 out of 40 cases there was no complaint, but complaining. There was nothing left to solve. They just never listened carefully, never really paid attention, never once sincerely said sorry. What a lesson. There is an essential difference between a complaint and complaining. Because the one case where I was able to take action, that was a legitimate complaint. I was able to enter it into our Ambassador app and it was (of course) solved well.
What was also so cool about it was that colleagues conjured up their app for complaining partygoers. They kept asking questions, and just by listening and showing that they could solve complaints, the complaining disappeared like snow in the sun. Just take a look at it this week. We all have a habit of complaining. But take it from me: if you listen to a complaining customer and give them genuine attention, you can prevent the complaint.
This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on December 18, 2019
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