How much are your favorite pants worth? A judge in Washington, D.C. made headlines when he filed a $54 million lawsuit against his neighborhood dry cleaner that he accused of losing a pair of his pinstriped suit pants. He claimed that a D.C. consumer protection law entitled him to thousands of dollars for each day over nearly four years in which signs at the shop promised “same day service” and “satisfaction guaranteed.” The suit dragged on for several months, but at the end of the day, the plaintiff went home with empty pockets.
If you’re not happy with a product or service, what can you do about it? You have three possible courses of action (though sometimes you can take more than one).
Voice response—. You can appeal directly to the retailer for redress (for example, a refund).
Private response—. You can express your dissatisfaction to friends and boycott the product or the store where you bought it.
Third-party response—. Like the pantsless judge, you can take legal action against the merchant, register a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, or perhaps write a letter to the newspaper.
In one study, business majors wrote complaint letters to companies. When the company sent a free sample in response, this significantly improved their feelings about the company. This didn’t happen, however, when they received only a letter of apology but no swag. Even worse, students who got no response reported an even more negative image than before, indicating that any kind of response is better than none.[54]
A number of factors influence which route to dealing with dissatisfaction we will choose. People are more likely to take action for expensive products such as household durables, cars, and clothing than for inexpensive products. Ironically, consumers who are satisfied with a store in general are more likely to complain if they experience something bad; they take the time to complain because they feel connected to the store. Older people are also more likely to complain, and they are much more likely to believe the store will actually resolve the problem. Shoppers who get their problems resolved feel even better about the store than if nothing had gone wrong. However, if the consumer does not believe that the store will respond well to a complaint, the person will be more likely to simply switch than fight. The moral: Marketers should encourage consumers to complain to them. People are more likely to spread the word about unresolved negative experiences to their friends than they are to boast about positive occurrences.
To be more responsive to its customers, Dell created a social networking community it calls Idea Storm. This is an online forum for users to submit suggestions about its products, and people have deluged the site with thousands of recommendations and comments. Increasingly, companies are figuring out that they’re better off revealing their flaws to their customers than pretending to be foolproof—and having to explain away failures later. For example, Delta Airlines (an established player in an industry notorious for low customer satisfaction) recently created its own Web site, http://blog.delta.com, that hosts suggestions from consumers—“Bring the pillows back, please”—as well as polls about features and offerings.
Many analysts who study consumer satisfaction or who are trying to design new products or services to increase it recognize that it is crucial to understand how people actually interact with their environment to identify potential problems. They typically conduct these investigations in focus groups where a small set of consumers comes into a facility to try a new item while company personnel observe them from behind a mirror.
However, some researchers advocate a more up-close-and-personal approach that allows them to watch people in the actual environment where they consume the product. This perspective grew out of the Japanese approach to total quality management (TQM); a complex set of management and engineering procedures aimed at reducing errors and increasing quality.
To help them achieve more insight, these researchers go to the Gemba, which to the Japanese means the one true source of information. According to this philosophy, it’s essential to send marketers and designers to the precise place where consumers use the product or service rather than asking laboratory subjects to interact with it in a simulated environment.
Host Foods, which operates food concessions in major airports, sent a team to the Gemba—in this case, an airport cafeteria—to identify problem areas. Employees watched as customers chose to (or didn’t) enter the facility and then followed them as they inspected the menu, procured silverware, paid, and found a table. The findings were crucial to Host’s redesign of the facility to make it easier to use. For example, the team identified a common problem that many people traveling solo experience: the need to put down one’s luggage to enter the food line, and the feeling of panic you get because you’re not able to keep an eye on your valuables while you’re getting your meal.
Get out of your office, and experience your product or service precisely the way your customers do. You may be in for a rude awakening.