A recent event on Twitter reminded me of my favorite customer opportunity: the bad experience. I remember the manager of my teenage fast-food job proclaiming the best way to win a loyal customer started with a complaint. Good advice, but I was busy with the drive-thru and didn’t fully appreciate the meaning until a few years later.

Like many others, I waited tables through college for spending money rent and would occasionally take on a customer who had been inadvertently ignored or otherwise mistreated. This would set me up to deliver a great customer experience (and land a sizable tip). Why? With expectations lowered, I could dazzle them with excellent service and turn the situation into a positive for the customer, the restaurant and myself. It was like fish in a barrel. Maybe that manager was on to something.

I recently recommended the url shortening service idek.net (they have click metrics – I love metrics) to an editor I follow on Twitter. He gave it a shot…and hit a glitch. His idek link went to the right piece when clicked in Twitter, but when placed on Facebook, the link pointed to a different article entirely. The editor then posted about the frustrating experience with idek. Arghh. I felt partially culpable for the situation and professed my apologies for the untimely hiccup.

Here is where it gets interesting: the creator of idek saw the post about the misdirected link. He quickly discovered the problem and sent a direct message to the editor, apologizing for the snafu and promising a timely fix. The editor followed up with this tweet:
“guy from idek twittered me and explained problem. said it would be fixed by w/e. impressive.”
Taking the time to address one person’s frustrations paid off instantly: one new user and positive brand publicity.

It seems my fast-food manager was right all along – the consumer who takes time to complain is asking to be won over. This is truly low hanging fruit, and you better have a harvest strategy ready to go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a customer waiting at the window.