1. The complaining customer

On the surface, complaints all look alike. Someone is dissatisfied and lets you know. What lies beneath differs greatly, and it is precisely that difference which determines what approach works. Anyone who comes straight out with a solution regularly solves something the customer was not losing sleep over. This chapter is about the question that precedes every solution: what is this complaint actually about?

Four types of complaint

Anyone who sorts complaints responds faster and more precisely. The content of a complaint almost always falls into one of four categories.

The product complaint is the most visible: what was delivered doesn't work, is damaged, is incomplete or doesn't do what was promised. There is a fact you can check, and the solution usually lies in replacing, repairing, crediting or delivering again.

With the process complaint the product is fine, but the route to it went wrong. The delivery arrived late, the invoice showed the wrong amount, the appointment wasn't in the system, or the customer had to tell his story three times. He is rarely angry about the product here; he is angry about the time he has lost.

With the treatment complaint the customer feels they have been treated unfairly. A colleague was curt, someone promised to call back and didn't, or the customer got the feeling they were being brushed aside. This type often only comes up when you ask about it, and it weighs more heavily than people themselves admit.

And then there is the expectation complaint: nothing has gone wrong, but the customer expected something different. The terms were unclear, the brochure suggested more, or the salesperson pitched it just a little too enthusiastically. Factually the delivery is correct, in the customer's experience it isn't. That is the trickiest category, because you are right and the customer feels hard done by.

Sometimes two types run together. The question is then which of the two bothers the customer most, because that is where your conversation begins.

Emotion before substance

A complaint arrives in two layers at once. There is a substantive layer, about what has actually gone wrong, and an emotional layer, about what that has done to the customer. A customer running high on emotion does not hear your solution. Not because they do not want to, but because their attention is on their own story.

Emotion before substance means you address the emotional layer first and only then talk about the matter itself. That feels like a delay and it is the shortest route. The curve of a complaint conversation nearly always runs the same way. The customer starts telling their story and their emotion rises, because they hear their own irritation coming back at them. Around the peak comes the sharpest phrasing: "this is the last time I buy anything here." If you say at that moment what you can do, they start again from the beginning and you have had the conversation twice. If instead they are given acknowledgement, the curve drops, and below a certain point your answer lands first time.

In practice that means three things. You let the customer finish, even if you already know what it's about after two sentences. You say out loud what you are hearing. And you don't use "but" in the sentence in which you give acknowledgement, because the customer mentally deletes everything before that word.

Acknowledging is not admitting fault

Many employees hold back from acknowledging because they think that in doing so they have already admitted the complaint. Those are two different things. You acknowledge the customer's experience, not the legal substance of their accusation.

How you can tell the emotion is subsiding

You do not have to guess when you can move on to the substance, because the customer signals it themselves. Their pace slows and they start leaving pauses again. Their volume returns to conversational level. They ask a question of their own, and "so what can you do about it now?" is your cue to answer. And they start saying "we": as soon as a customer talks about "let's have a look at it together", they are standing beside you instead of opposite you.

There is a pitfall at either end. Glossing over it, with "it's not that bad, surely", pushes the emotion up rather than down. Joining in the complaining about your own organisation, with "yes, it's always like that here", feels good for a moment but leaves you powerless in the customer's eyes. You acknowledge the customer's experience and stay away from the conclusion.

What lies beneath the complaint

The complaint a customer voices is rarely the whole complaint. What he mentions is the part that shows above the surface. Beneath it are three layers that determine whether your solution works: his experience, so what it did to him, his expectation, so what he thought would happen, and his interest, so which problem of his own needs to be solved here. Fix only the tip and the customer has formally been helped and still isn't satisfied. The late delivery is credited, but the feeling that a promise was broken remains. That customer will call again in three weeks, and then about something else.

A hidden complaint is the dissatisfaction the customer doesn't mention, but which does explain his behaviour. It doesn't disappear by itself, it accumulates: someone who swallows three small irritations leaves at the fourth without a complaint ever having been recorded. You recognise it from four signals. Disproportionate emotion over a small fact, because that anger doesn't match that amount, so there is a history underneath it. The sentence "and this isn't the first time", which is an invitation and not a subordinate clause. A vague complaint such as "things just aren't running very well at your end", which you can't do anything with without facts. And "yes, but" after a reasonable offer: if the customer doesn't bite, the problem you are solving isn't his problem.

Getting to the bottom of what is going on

Probing only works if the customer understands why you're asking. You explain the reason for your question, you name the signal you picked up and you stick to one question at a time. If there's hesitation: "I'm hearing some doubt. Has something gone wrong before?" With a vague complaint: "To really do something about this, I want to understand one example properly. Which moment bothered you most?" And when an offer doesn't land: "I get the feeling I'm missing something. What is the most important thing for you that changes here?"

Summary

• Complaints fall into four types: product, process, treatment and expectations. Each type calls for a different solution.
• The expectation complaint is the trickiest one: factually the delivery is correct, but not in the customer's perception.
• As long as emotion is running high, your substance doesn't land. Acknowledge first, solve afterwards.
• Acknowledging someone's experience is not the same as admitting a mistake, and it should not be followed by a "but".
• The customer indicates themselves when the emotion subsides: slower pace, lower volume, a question of their own and the word "we".
• What the customer mentions is the tip. Experience, expectation and interest lie beneath it, and you bring them to the surface with well-reasoned questions.