Yelp and Urbanspoon lend more ears to our unpleasant dining experiences, extending grievances beyond our circle of friends. Somehow, a good rant makes customers feel like they got revenge.
“The problem is that today we associate the act of complaining with venting far more than we do with problem solving,” said Guy Winch, Ph.D., and psychologist and author of “Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the Right Way to Get Results.”
The bellyaching, Winch writes, only makes us relive our aggravation, rather than relieving it.
As founder of the world’s first customer service industry, John Goodman (no relation to the actor) has a term for airing our grievances online—the “word of mouse.”
He explains that while dissatisfied customers voice their complaints to others twice as often as satisfied customers do, online complainers are even more boisterous—they give about four times as many negative reviews on the Internet than positive reviews.
Maybe this explains why the restaurant you love has scant star-ratings on Yelp.
Technical Assistance Research Program studies show that between 20 and 70 percent of new customers are won over by a company because of positive word of mouth. These numbers make it easy to see why Yelp reviews, however petty and anonymous, affect restaurants.
There’s a service set up to combat customers taking to Yelp before asking to speak to a manager—aptly called “Talk to the Manager.” Talk to the Manager allows customers to anonymously gripe to a restaurant manager via text. The service accepts what many companies are embracing—that a complaint is an opportunity for growth.
Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller highlighted the topic in their book, “A Complaint is a Gift.”
“In simplest terms, complaints are statements about expectations that have not been met,” the book reads.
For example, if a customer complains about newly purchased blue jeans that shrank or the color ran, at a deeper level they’re giving the store an opportunity to fix the problem so the customer will continue buying clothes from that business.
Recently, students put Sodexo to the test regarding their qualms about food at
The Reef—and they responded.
Two weeks ago, Louis Duran set up a Food Service Committee made up entirely of students. The students, Duran said, act as ambassadors for The Reef, talking to peers about the food and service, then relaying the information back to the higher-ups.
This is an example of someone who looked at a complaint not as a bashing, but
an opportunity for improvement.
For each complaint you hear, there are usually between 10 and 100 of a similar nature that are either unarticulated “or handled by other touch points or organizations.”
It’s true, at times, complaints from ‘word of mouse’ doesn’t give the manager an opportunity to fix the problem. It’s like getting mad at a significant other but not communicating a word to them.
A free-for all of bad publicity communicated to the Internet before a manager doesn’t solve customer complaints. It only emboldens their decline. With Sodexo, there’s not much of a choice. Their contract retains their position as the sole food supplier on campus for the next five years, at the very least.
If you’ve got a complaint, talk to the manager.
