If your customers rarely make any complaints, is this low complaint rate really a proper indication of the effectiveness of your sales training and high client satisfaction? Or have you as sales manager merely fallen prey to one of the five common mistakes made about client satisfaction? Review the following to test yourself and your assumptions:

Mistake No. 1: The nature/volume of the complaints received is not accurately represented by the information collected.

Only a few organisations record client complaints exactly according to the number, type, time, degree of gravity and selected resolution. An analysis of accurate data on client complaints can give an idea of weaknesses in the product or sales team. Not enough companies see complaints as a “second chance”.

A customer who takes the time and effort to make a complaint assumes that their problem will be dealt with satisfactorily and that they will be able to continue working with your company. Many salespeople, however, are unwilling to pass on negative information. Thus a high complaint rate is often swept under the carpet or glossed over. This can be particularly true if the number of client complaints is increasing.

The second cause of insufficient information has its origins in the sales route. Some sales channels, for instance in specialist trades, have a strong filter effect on receiving accurate complaint data. For example, where a customer uses a supplier or dealer to lodge their complaints then the original manufacturer may only hear of the issue second-hand, and then often through rose-tinted glasses.

Mistake No. 2: The extent of dissatisfaction is not accurately measured.

Even in organisations that have a refined complaint-information system, the degree of client dissatisfaction is often underestimated. This is because most dissatisfied clients think it requires too much effort or they do not know who to address their complaint to and so do not complain. Instead, they quietly turn their back on your company and, angry and disappointed become a negative multiplier - telling their friends and acquaintances what they failed to report to your sales people.

Therefore, a high level of client satisfaction can not be assumed if there is a low complaint rate. Low complaint rates can also be an indication that your company is not managing to document its handling of complaints.

Mistake No. 3: Assuming that just because your customers are loyal they are satisfied.

Whilst this assumption may be true, the same outcome can arise where some clients have no alternative or demand is greater than supply. In these instances they only buy from you because your competitors cannot yet deliver what they need when they need it.

The danger exists that you will lose these supposedly loyal customes if demand drops or if a new supplier appears on the market.

Another interesting customer group are the disinterested customers: they seemingly place no great value on a particular product or service and are not worried about alternatives. In summary, they are not particularly satisfied and at best they are not dissatisfied. But think what happens if one of your competitors approaches one of your disinterested clients and shows them an alternative?

Mistake No. 4: Assuming you can reduce technical shortcomings with a smiling face.

Every service and every product, is comprised of two qualities:

On one hand, there is the technical quality, i.e the question of whether a given product functions as expected;

On the other hand, there is the human quality - and with it the question of whether your sales and service staff are friendly, patient, attentive and polite in all their dealings with customers.

It is precisely these human qualities that have recently been increasingly emphasised with companies starting to provide sales training for all their staff accordingly. Such customer focused training is effective provided good human qualities complement, and not replace, an equally good technical quality offering.

On the contrary, if large quality problems arise, clients tend to feel that they have been taken for a ride if the sales person appears to be overly friendly.

Mistake No. 5: Managers are responsible for complaint management

Many managers do not think their sales people are capable of the flexibility and sovereignty needed to decide how a given complaint should be dealt with.

However, salespeople and those working within the customer service department are themselves consumers and are therefore adequately qualified to put themselves in the customer’s shoes.

It is the responsibility of all managers to embed the idea of client orientation in their sales people’s heads and to provide them with appropriate sales training to develop and re-enforce the necessary customer orientated skills needed.

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