It is TMI's intention that each one of these examples will increase your personal understanding of how to improve your own complaint handling.

Janelle Barlow, President of TMI USA, just recently delivered a very complex print job to a local branch of a national print shop chain. It took almost fifteen minutes to explain the particulars of this job, and she left concerned whether all the instructions would be followed precisely. She had even brought in her own special paper, which added to the cost of the printing. 

When she got the job back (a total of 1500 sheets of paper), she discovered a host of problems, not the least of which was that one of the sheets had 300 copies made of it, which meant that the shop ran out of Janelle's special paper, and substituted cheap 20 pound paper for one of the print runs. The printer also made copies of Janelle's originals, so all the final copies were run off a second generation print, which reduced the quality of the print run enormously. Many of the sheets were to be cut, and they were poorly or improperly cut. In short, unacceptable work. 

Janelle returned to the store intending to ask for a refund of the printing and to have her special paper replaced. When she went to the front desk, the one thing she said to the gentleman behind the counter was that she didn't want to tell this story twice because it was so complicated. The man was very helpful and agreed to refund money and replace the paper. He was embarrassed, said all the right things, and Janelle felt some relief, but she was ready to walk out the door and certainly not use this organization to do any complex print runs for her again. 

At that point, a shift supervisor came over to Janelle and asked what was happening. The first gentleman was very concerned that she would have to tell her story over again, so he summarized it by saying that the job was unacceptable, that many things were wrong. 

Here is where this company gets an A+ in complaint handling. The supervisor said that he would be glad to do anything to satisfy Janelle, but he also didn't want to lose TMI's business. He asked if they could try to do the job over, and there would be no charge, and they would also refund the money for the job and replace the paper. That's quite an offer! He also agreed to run Janelle's originals disks through their computer instead of photocopying originals, insuring the quality would be the same as if they had been printed on a laser printer. 

He went on to explain how this company wanted to earn TMI's business, and told Janelle how to make sure complicated jobs such as the one she had given to them would be handled well. He gave her four business cards of people she should always ask for when coming into the shop. And he suggested that they send someone to the TMI office to discuss the special ways this company could help us in our printing needs. 

Janelle was so impressed with their efforts to win TMI's business, that she left the work with this company and said that she would not take a refund nor a replacement for her paper if the second print run were adequate. As it was, they would not charge Janelle the set up fee for doing a computer run instead of a print run. 

Complaint handling is not just compensating customers for their immediate problems as they walk out your door. Complaint handling involves satisfying the person as they walk out your door in such a way, so they want to come back and give you more business. The second man Janelle talked with clearly understood this, and he gets an A+ for his effective complaint handling. Every organization makes mistakes. You have to demonstrate to your customers that something special is going to happen so these mistakes are less likely to happen again. Otherwise, you are just reducing your customers' short term dissatisfaction, but you certainly aren't buying their loyalty. And that's a costly way to run your business.gave her four business cards of people she should always ask for when coming into the shop. And he suggested that they send someone to the TMI office to discuss the special ways this company could help us in our printing needs. 

Janelle was so impressed with their efforts to win TMI's business, that she left the work with this company and said that she would not take a refund nor a replacement for her paper if the second print run were adequate. As it was, they would not charge Janelle the set up fee for doing a computer run instead of a print run. 

Complaint handling is not just compensating customers for their immediate problems as they walk out your door. Complaint handling involves satisfying the person as they walk out your door in such a way, so they want to come back and give you more business. The second man Janelle talked with clearly understood this, and he gets an A+ for his effective complaint handling. Every organization makes mistakes. You have to demonstrate to your customers that something special is going to happen so these mistakes are less likely to happen again. Otherwise, you are just reducing your customers' short term dissatisfaction, but you certainly aren't buying their loyalty. And that's a costly way to run your business.
 

Previous "Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages:  
#1    #2     #3
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We invite you to submit your "best" examples by fax or e-mail. We won't print any company names with the "poor" examples, because we believe that every organization fails from time to time. We will give credit to companies delighting their customers. In the case of the "poor" examples, we'll comment on how we think this situation could have been handled better. If you want us to list your name, please tell us that is what you want to do.

 

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Training Program  

  A Complaint Is a Gift, The Book  

Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases, we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to reach them. Janelle Barlow

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