The only thing some companies dislike more than making a mistake is admitting they made one. Somehow, they equate being perfect with being lovable. They believe that customers, above all else, desire perfection in the companies they purchase from.
Usually this sort of corporate attitude backfires. Sooner or later, no matter how hard it tries, a company is bound to make a mistake with a customer or be perceived as having done so. And this is the point where things go south for that company’s sales and brand:
- When a company refuses to admit a mistake, customers become frustrated or downright angry.
- When a company refuses to correct a mistake, customers quickly get mad enough to buy elsewhere.
- Customers perceive these responses as stonewalling, arrogance, or stupidity. They share the gory details with every family member, friend, neighbor, and social media connection they can find.
- As a result, disenchanted customers, lost customers, and lost sales revenue pile up. The brand is battered and bruised.
As designers and suppliers of custom packaging boxes and materials, we are well aware of how sensitive our customers’ customers are about the quality, convenience, and sustainability of their packaging. People are just as likely to register complaints about packaging as they are about anything aspect of what they purchase.
With respect to packaging, a company can turn complaints into sales and branding opportunities, simply by having the right attitude, acknowledging, clarifying, and resolving. Let’s look at this more closely.
1. Have a Positive Attitude
If a customer complains about your packaging (privately or publicly), welcome it! Embrace it! Your customer is trying to help you. If the customer didn’t care about you, they’d just buy somewhere else, and you’d never be the wiser. Furthermore, whether or not the complaint is justified, the complaint demonstrates one of two things: either that your packaging can be improved, or that you are not communicating how or why your packaging is the best available option.
2. Acknowledge
The worst thing you can do with any complaint is to give the impression you’re not listening. If a customer complains privately via email or text or webform, acknowledge it. Send a quick but thoughtful 
reply to the effect that you’ve received the message, will be looking into it, and providing a full response as soon as possible. If the complaint is registered publicly on a social media or business review platform, reply publicly in the same way if you are able to, or if not, privately. This simple acknowledgement goes a long way toward defusing the situation and demonstrating your concern for customer satisfaction. But this is not all you are going to do!
3. Clarify
When customers complain, it’s liable to be off the mark on technical details and more of a rambling narrative than a tightly composed critique. But that’s OK; your customers aren’t expected to be technical experts in your business or professional writers. The key is to make sure you understand what exactly is objectionable about your packaging — you can’t fix a problem unless you know what it is. You may have to ask the complaining customer for a few more details or some clarification. If the customer is acting in good faith, he will welcome this kind of attention: it may even be enough to earn you some additional business — because how many companies actually take the time and trouble to do what we just described?
4. Resolve
Once you know for sure what you’re dealing with, you can fix the packaging problem, explain why you can’t fix it, or explain why it is not really a problem. You won’t make your case perfectly or successfully every time, but you will succeed most of the time, assuming your packaging quality is as it should be. If the original complaint was registered publicly, you’ll have to decide whether it’s best to state your resolution publicly or privately. If your response is private (and satisfactory), it won’t hurt to encourage the customer to post a public follow-up note to help you maintain your image.
Let’s Talk
This simple formula works, as we said, when your packaging is in solid shape to begin with. Is yours? If you seek ideas to make your packaging more consistent, more economical, more convenient, or more sustainable, we are the experts.
Please call us at 630-551-1700 or contact us through the website to start the conversation.