Top Ten Most Common Customer Complaints. How to Turn these 10 Customer Complaints into Positive Customer Expectation. How to Achieve Customer Service Excellence.

Welcoming Complaints
Today’s unhappy customers are no longer restricted to talking with friends and neighbors over the backyard fence or the phone. They are also equipped with the Internet, which can quickly spread their message of dissatisfaction to the whole world. Websites that are dedicated to bashing non–customer friendly providers and organizations have proliferated. Enough negative write-ups or mentions on these websites will severely affect an organization’s reputation and put its business model at risk. Furthermore, recruiting new customers is much more costly than retaining an existing customer base, a research finding that was as true in the late 1990s as it is today.
Surveys and interviews are not required to determine that most customers expect a positive experience from a service provider. Customers complain when they encounter factors or situations they do not expect. These complaints are a good source of information, however. Examining what customers do not want can provide insight into what they do want. In his book Discovering the Soul of Service, service expert Len Berry (1999, 31) lists the ten most common customer complaints, which are still valid in today’s healthcare marketplace. A common thread in these complaints is that customers feel disrespected:
?    Complaint: lying, dishonesty, and unfairness by the organization and employees
Customer expectation: to be told the truth and treated fairly
?    Complaint: harsh, disrespectful treatment by employees
Customer expectation: to be treated with respect
?    Complaint: carelessness, mistakes, and broken promises
Customer expectation: to receive careful, reliable healthcare and the promised clinical outcome
?    Complaint: employees without the desire or authority to solve problems
Customer expectation: to receive prompt solutions to clinical and nonclinical problems
?    Complaint: waiting in line because some service lanes or counters are closed
Customer expectation: to wait as short a time as possible
?    Complaint: impersonal service
Customer expectation: to receive personal attention and genuine interest from employees
?    Complaint: inadequate communication after problems arise
Customer expectation: to be kept informed of problem-solving efforts after reporting or encountering problems or service failures
?    Complaint: employees who are unwilling to make extra effort or who seem annoyed by requests for assistance
Customer expectation: to receive assistance rendered willingly by employees
?    Complaint: employees who do not know what is happening
Customer expectation: to receive accurate answers to common questions from informed employees
?    Complaint: employees who put their own interests first, conduct personal business, or chat with each other while the customers wait
Customer expectation: to have customer interests come first

Top Ten Most Common Customer Complaints. How to Turn these 10 Customer Complaints into Positive Customer Expectation. How to Achieve Customer Service Excellence.