SportDownUnder.com.au

Nine out of ten (9/10) customers don’t complain when they have a bad experience at a restaurant.

Instead they choose not to go back. They vote with their feet. But guess what else they do? They’ll tell others what a bad experience they had.

The same principle applies to big brands. Most people don’t call head office, fill out complaint forms or write long letters to the CEO. Instead, they stop using the product or service and they vent their frustration to anyone and everyone (except the brand itself).

In a restaurant, it’s easy to find the 1/10 customer you’ve upset. They’ll kick and scream, and you can listen and learn from their feedback right there and then.

Same with big brands, 1/10 customers will write to you or pick up the phone.

But what about those 9/10 customers? How do you find out what they are saying to each other?

The answer is social media.

The best companies are listening to the conversations about their brands online, learning from those conversations and then engaging in those conversations.

Social media chatter has forced brands to develop new marketing strategies and even tinker with their products and services – all based on what the customer is saying.

Old crocodiles slam this theory, saying it doesn’t make sense to over-haul your marketing strategy or your products and services based on what a minority of your customers are saying online.

Yet what they don’t understand is this. Those ‘minority’ customers online represent the 9/10 customers – the customers who don’t complain directly.

These are the customers who would rather join a Facebook group criticising your brand then fill out a complaint form.

Are you listening to your 9/10 customers?