Waiter! What is the fly doing in my soup? Backstroke, I believe, Sir.
All jokes aside, my first experience of the economic value of a complaint was when as a teenager I was travelling in the United States, and in an Italian restaurant in New York, after complaining about the meal, was not charged for it. Wow, free food. Then the brain of a student travelling on a budget starts ticking differently. Turns out, I was not the only one.
Now that has evolved into a “Karen Culture”. In the words of Professor Heather Suzanne Woods of Kansas State University, a scholar and teacher of digital rhetoric whose research interests include memes, “…a Karen’s defining characteristics are a sense of entitlement, a willingness and desire to complain, and a self-centred approach to interacting with others”. If there are people, there is a culture and if there is a culture then there is an economic reality that needs to be understood.
For businesses that means, someone is either making money out of complaints or losing money from the whole process. Complaints are a goldmine of business intelligence and free information about your organisation. One, like a drop of water, may not be significant but to extend the metaphor, drop after drop can erode a rock or be turned into a reservoir.
As societies in Asia continue down the development pathway with millions emerging out of relative poverty into the stratosphere of the upper-middle class this trend will only increase. So too will the potential for consumer-driven crisis for brands.
The first thing to do is collect all the free work done by those who have complained. They have done free work by airing their concerns on various platforms. This includes social media, media and directly to the organisation or its regulators. This is a goldmine of information, take that information and organise it. Then the most critical part will be to act effectively on this newly acquired business intelligence.
In this scenario, community-focused or people-focused organisations with a social development agenda need to be the best listeners especially post-Covid-19, it’s the first part of becoming a resilient future-focused institution.
We have all seen the iceberg explaining the known knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. This rich vein of data if properly mined can go a long way in reducing the unknowns ensuring that a CEO or business owner is not caught off guard by what could be publicly available data. Engage the facts or become “the known” as the ostrich-inspired leader who failed to overcome the crisis.
The joker in the pack is that with trolls, keyboard warriors, commentators or actual folks fed up with something, it’s hard to clear out the noise and get to the point. So, it is completely possible to do everything right and not out-communicate the background noise of the universe. This is why more resources need to be allocated to communication and designing a communication strategy that will convey the facts and shift the narrative to reflect that reality – not so easy when there is an active misinformation campaign running against your happy little solution to weaponised garden variety complaints.
In simple terms – listen, change and communicate.
Now for the political kicker.
An analysis by ABC News stated that “in both rich and poor democracies around the world, more than 80 per cent saw the incumbent party lose seats or vote share from the last election and since the COVID-19 pandemic.” Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University found that incumbents have been removed from office in 40 of 54 elections in Western democracies.
Complaints in the corporate sector, government departments and countries that have extensive state-owned enterprises are the new canary in the coal mine. If you are not listening, your opposition is all ears. They have the weight of recent political history on their side, and the discontent of those still recovering from the pandemic – a normalised new angry people voting with their feet as consumers and as political animals. The now is simple, listen, act and communicate or watch from the sidelines after the next election.
As we come full circle, a fly in the soup could be the canary in the coal mine that sets off the butterfly effect for your next crisis. The convergence of managing consumer feedback and resolving customer dissatisfaction with the way people will vote in the next election is only just beginning to be understood. The competitive forces have put this process on steroids. One thing we can be sure of is that it will directly impact how the game is played going forward.
This letter to the editor is written by Nordin Abdullah, Founding Chairman of the Malaysia Global Business Forum (MGBF) and the Crisis Management Centre.
*Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of NHA – News Hub Asia. 