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Customer Complaints as a Game Changer | 4 Tips for Your Retailer
Sebastian Terlunen
Complaints, returns, returns. Annoying, time-consuming, and expensive. Just unpopular, actually. Both for your retailing, delivery service or wine trade with Parcel delivery as well as for your customers. A complaint is always inconvenient. For every person involved and everyone involved.
There is therefore great temptation to simply ignore the issue of complaints. However, it is important for your direct marketing or yours retailingto keep an eye on the number of complaints. Complaints are a direct measurement tool for quality of your products and the services you provide.
But how can you measure the number of complaints using the complaint rate? And what options are there to reduce complaints. Find out in the following blog post.
Die Complaint rate Is for your retail store, your direct marketing, your delivery service, your Sandwich service or yours wine trade An important Kennzahl. If not even a key figure from the top 10!
What is a complaint rate anyway? The complaint rate sets the complained about products in relation to the total number of orders you have fulfilled. The complaint rate is therefore a significant indicator of the quality of your products or service.
Basically, the lower the complaint rate for your (agricultural) direct marketing, the better. In addition to a complaint rate across all orders from your retailer, it may be useful to further detail or specify the complaint rate. For example, a specification according to work steps or products. In this way, you can get a differentiated statement about different areas or products. Typical specifications include, for example, the quality from different product categories, the punctuality of your Delivery service or the reliability of your Parcel delivery.
The form for determining the complaint rate is quite simple and is defined as follows:
Complaint rate (in percent) = sum of complaints x 100/total sum of all orders
According to the formula, you must first find out how many complaints you have received in a certain period of time (sum of complaints). Multiply that number by 100.
You then divide the result by the total number of your direct marketing or your Delivery service delivered orders. The figure calculated is the complaint rate as a percentage of your retailing.
Here is an example to illustrate the formula:
You want the complaint rate for your wine trade or for your winery determine. In the first quarter of the fiscal year, you sold 100 wine boxes and poste shipped. 15 wine boxes were complained about by customers. The formula therefore looks as follows:
Complaint rate: 15 x 100 = 1,500/100 = 15 percent
In general, a complaint rate of less than one percent is great. Is your complaint rate between one and three percent, you should try to find out the reasons and take countermeasures. If the complaint rate exceeds three percent, there is an urgent need for action.
In the example above, the wine seller/winemaker should therefore have received a maximum of 3 complaints in order to still be able to comply with a complaint rate of 3 percent.
A low complaint rate is for your retailing desirable, of course. If the complaint rate is too high, you should try to lower it. What else...
As a rule of thumb, the higher the rate of complained about products, the more time-consuming it is to find out and change the reasons for them. Since a high complaint rate can have a variety of causes, the following structured approach to investigating the causes is recommended:
First, consider the reasons for the respective complaints. To do this, study notes, emails, phone logs, and return letters. Many reasons are often repeated for the different returns.
In this way, you get a very precise Atmospheric picture from your customers. In most cases, it's quick and easy to find out why your customers aren't satisfied with your product or service. In general, the most common reasons are poor quality, poor value for money or damaged goods.
Returns are often caused by a lack of quality. For example, the goods are delivered damaged (e.g. damp, clammy or laggy rolls). Or damaged goods are repackaged and sold as new to customers. Or services are advertised intensively, but then not implemented in practice as promised. For example, promised Delivery time window.
Go actively against Quality deficiencies before. Führe quality standards one. Pay meticulous attention to its implementation and compliance. Returned For example, goods should be marked and a high Quality control are subject to. Services should be subject to a market-comparable standard.
Check that you're overskin the right Target group address for your products. For example, if you have designed the taste of your wine for a wide range of buyers, but then advertise the wine as premium wine, you have to expect a lot of feedback.
To ensure that the quality requirements of your customers match the quality characteristics of your products, you need to know your customers, i.e. your target group, as precisely as possible. The creation of tailor-made solutions will help you with this descriptive features of your addressable customers or customer groups. A frequently used methodology To identify the dominant descriptive features of your customers, the so-called Buyer personas approach. After you've worked out the dominant descriptive features, you'll be able to better tailor your products and services to your target group.
If the quality and the target group are right, that is often Value for money This is one reason for the high response rate. Because it is not only the quality of the goods or services that plays a role in pricing. The price must also suit your target group.
Apart from the main reasons for returns described above — quality deficiencies, wrong target group and inappropriate Value for money — Does your handling of returns decisively shape your reputation and Reputation of your company. When making purchases, many people base their purchases on Valuations Other customers.
Therefore, as a direct marketer, you are Retailers Or good advice for wine marketers to avoid bad reviews as far as possible due to poor customer service or poor accessibility. The first step towards professionalism: Define a process for your complaint management.
Take a look at complaints from another perspective. See Complaints as Chane. Because: a complaints team that has been particularly well trained in dealing with complaining customers and knows how to make such discussions positive and constructive has potential. Disappointed or dissatisfied customers can be recaptured and Existing customers Be converted. It is not uncommon for a well-served customer to become even stronger after a complaint Advocate for your retail business and for yourself.
Recurrences and complaints are unpleasant. Sure. But: also insightful. Because: If you check the complaint rate of your retailYours wine trade Or yours Bread Delivery Service Calculate and evaluate, the result is great for you valuable insights for improvement potential in various areas and work steps.
If you implement these improvements, the measures will in turn lead to a drop in the complaint rate. This is how you reduce costs and increase your good repute with your existing and potential customers.
Continuously determining the complaint rate and keeping it as low as possible is therefore ultimately a measure that serves quality assurance and leads to more Customer satisfaction leads.
But now you're probably asking yourself how you can process and record complaint rates as easily and quickly as possible?!
Very simple: With Fracht pilot. Our extensive Evaluations Allow yourself at any time with a click in Real time to record complaints. And functions for example, that automatic creation Cancellation invoices, price discounts or special prices help you respond professionally to complaints.
Test Just Fracht Pilot put through its paces for 30 days. Free and without obligation. Or see for yourself in a webinar with live presentation of Fracht Pilot. Individually and personally through a webinar where just you and us are! Any question is allowed ;-)
