The book description page for the second edition of A Complaint is a Gift is now live at BKConnection.com and I thought I might as well just present it in the same way that Janelle Barlow and Claus Møller have over there:
• Demonstrates why complaints are the biggest bargain in market research, and how companies can use this information as a strategic tool to increase business
• Offers a complete Complaints Policy that readers can implement in their companies
• Presents dozens of real-life striking examples of poor-and excellent- complaint handling
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 shift products, service style, and market focus. Unfortunately many businesses dodge responsibility for a customer's dissatisfaction, believing that complaining customers are trying to get something for free or that the problem is the customer's fault. Businesses who don't value their customers' complaints suffer from costly, negative word-of-mouth advertising.
A Complaint Is a Gift shifts the paradigm about how complaints are viewed by business. By presenting dozens of striking examples and research studies, Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller show that companies must view complaints as gifts if they are to have loyal customers. A Complaint Is a Gift is a "how to" book for those who want to turn complaints into a strategic tool to increase business and customer satisfaction, and to learn something new about products and services. It is filled with practical guidance:
- how to behave as if complaints are gifts
- how to use communication principles to handle upset customers
- how to respond to written complaints
- how to handle personal criticism, and more
A Complaint Is a Gift also tells how to create complaint-friendly organizations by encouraging customers to speak out. It outlines communication structures that can facilitate the movement of complaints from frontline staff to upper management, allowing customer-identified problems to be fixed within the company. Complaint-friendly cultures are described in detail, and specific structures are suggested that can be adopted by companies interested in becoming complaint-friendly.A Complaint Is a Gift repositions the role of complaints in business-and argues that handling customer complaints is not just about making customers feel better. It is a book for individuals and companies to deal with complaints in a new and refreshing way. It also brings together three decades of customer dissatisfaction research and shows how companies can use this information to change internal policies and practices.
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The first edition has sold more than 130,000 copies so far and it's very exciting to see the buzz that is starting to build around the new edition. For more information and to order a copy see the previous post about its release.
