Customer Complaints play a critical role in any organization because they are the rawest form of interaction between a customer and a business.  Complaints, by their very nature, are an emotional reaction to an experience.  It’s visceral so it’s more about emotion than fact.  Customers who are angry, frustrated or “feel” like they have been disrespected in some fashion are more inclined to let their feelings be known.  A company should never, ever, dismiss a customer’s complaint, even if it’s proven that the complaint has no factual foundation.  An angry customer today has a multitude of communication platforms at their disposal to share their outrage.  A company who ignores customer complaints does so at their own peril.  Companies can learn a great deal from complaints and in some cases customer complaints can help an organization identify flaws in their DNA.

As the Chair of the CAAMP Mortgage Forum, I think about customer complaints and feedback, and how best to interpret the complaints/feedback.  Unlike organizations that produce a product, the Mortgage Forum is an experience.  An experience is emotional and therefore when I review the CAAMP survey I do so through a filter.  All the feedback we receive about the conference is carefully analyzed but I also remind myself that it is nearly impossible to satisfy everyone. Some people are predisposed to having a less than positive experience.

For example, some complaints are made by those who fall into the “bitter bucket”.  These are individuals who really dislike a different approach. Let me rephrase that, they hate everything.  They long for the old ways.  The simple things in life provide them comfort, and they miss that.  If the messiah himself was to appear on stage these people would say, “great…just what we need…another motivational speaker”.  The other group is the “phantom bucket”.  These are the people who go to the conference and don’t attend any sessions. However, they still share their opinions about the quality of the sessions and speakers.  I’m impressed that their telepathic prowess is not impacted by sleep deprivation and libation intake.

Irrespective of the categories of complaints they all serve a purpose.  The Mortgage Forum is a two and half day experience and the likelihood of being completely satisfied over the course of the entire conference is pretty low. The attention to detail, by those responsible for putting this event together, is the reason why the majority of delegates are satisfied with their experience at the Mortgage Forum. For the people who arrange the Mortgage Forum, it’s the little things.  Like addressing the complaint we received one year that “the bagel’s we served at breakfast were too small”.  So now when you have breakfast at the Mortgage Forum you’ll notice there are bagel instructions on the back of all the napkins: “If you believe the bagels are too small, please feel free to eat two of them“.  Just kidding, we went with bigger bagels.

Until next time,

Cheers.