Mitsubishi is still paying the price of last year's recall of over one and a half million of their cars. At that time, Mitsubishi admitted to the government that it had hidden customer complaints for over 20 years. It's not making too fine a point to state that under these circumstances, Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America needs to improve its customer relations dramatically. In , 2001, the company reported over 25% sales drop compared with the same month last year.

How is Mitsubishi attempting to address this issue? It's helping its dealers deliver better customer service by getting relevant information to them faster. The goal is to allow dealers to have access to billing information, the status of car parts ordered for customers, and warranty information. 

The software tools that Mitsubishi has installed are estimated to have cost them over a million dollars. That million is a small figure compared to lost sales, damaged reputation, and damage to the Mitsubishi brand.

Surely it would have been wiser for Mitsubishi to have made a concrete decision some years ago that listening to customers and responding to their needs and complaints would be their company policy. It's difficult for consumers to trust the motivation of any company implementing sudden changes like this. One could argue that changes of this type only make the public believe that the company will listen to customers when they are forced to do so.

It would have been cheaper...
 
 
 

Janelle Barlow, Coauthor
A Complaint Is a Gift
Emotional Value
 
 
 

Previous "Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages: 
 
 

#1	Overselling Service
#2	Not Listening to Complaints
#3	Plastic Chicken
#4	Complaints You Can Do Nothing About
#5	A+ Complaint Handling
#6	Beware! Others are Watching You
#7	At Least Keep Talking!
#8	Let Customers Know You'll Tell Someone
#9	If You're Going to Apologize, Then Mean It
#10	Keep Front-life Staff Well Informed
#11	Don't Set Goals to Reduce Complaints
#12	Products Used During Special Events
#13	Best Practices of Complaint-friendly Organizations
#14	Complaints About Mother Nature!
#15	Socially Offensive Situations
#16	A Complaint Is a Gift in Action
#17	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, I
#18	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, II
#19	Creating an Internal Service Culture
#20	When Your Customers are Industrial Buyers
#21	Customers Who are Poor Complainers
#22	Complaints That are Difficult to Talk About
#23	Do You Mistreat Your Customers?
#24	Fairness: Treatment of Staff
#25	Expectations and Complaints
#26	Successful Toll-free Experiences
#27	Small Companies and Service
#28	A Banking Customer Strikes Back
#29	Complaints in the Hospitality Business
#30	Customers Be More Cynical
#31	Above All, Communicate When Things Go Wrong!
_#32	Eliminating Blame
_#33	Friendliness Keeps Them Coming Back!
_#34	Seeking Out Complaints
_#35	If They Complain, Why Not Sue Them!
_#36	"Sorry for Any Inconvenience Caused"
_#37	Don't Back Away When Someone Complains To You
_#38	The Right Person
_#39	Complaining is Becoming Popular in Japan
_#40	Complaining Over the Holidays
_#41	Can Tracking Your Complaints Help Reduce Them?
_#42	Are the British Getting Better at Complaining?
_#43	The Danger of Being a Monopoloy
_#44	Complaints Within Complaint Call Centers
_#45	Why Not Take Complaints From Everyone?
_#46	British Airways Gains a Competitive Advantage
_#47	Corporate Complaints Inside Organizations
_#48	The Power of the Complaining Public

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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