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Eight areas of quantifiable data can be integrated into quality assurance decisions
CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS PROVIDE valuable quality assurance, service and marketing data. But the challenge is to use the data to make decisions that result in substantive action.
To use complaint data to solve problems in design, marketing, installation, distribution and after sale use and maintenance, you should have a basic understanding of customer complaint and market behavior.
This understanding will provide a framework for interpreting the data and extrapolating it to the entire customer base. The framework will allow organizations not only to quantify the implications of the data but also to set priorities and allocate scarce quality assurance resources to mitigate problems.
In fact, unsolicited complaints submitted at the time a problem occurs are less costly than systematic sampling and inspection and provide more timely information than is typically available from warranty data.
Eight factors about customer behavior are key to understanding the implications of complaint data.
1. Dissatisfied individual and business customers tend not to complain.
Research by TARP1,2 indicates most customers do not complain when they encounter a problem. In one case that could have resulted in an average loss of $142 to the customer, TARP found about 31% of individuals who encountered the problem did not complain.
We also found for small problems that resulted in either a loss of a few dollars or a minor inconvenience, only 3% of consumers complained and 30% returned the product. The balance of consumers encountering this problem either did nothing or discarded the product.
In a survey of 600 business software customers conducted by TARP,3 results indicated 37% of the companies that encountered problems did not complain to anyone, even to the software support center. In several business to business studies, an average score of 25% of business customers made no contact with the vendor.
Finally, a 2001 TARP survey of purchasing agents for companies using electronic broadcast equipment found more than 50% who had encountered problems took immediate punitive action against a company without complaining to either the salesperson or sales manager. Companies indicated it was easier to switch vendors than complain.
2. Complaints often do not directly identify the source or cause of the problem.
The causes of customer dissatisfaction...