Haters are the early warning detection system for your business, much like a canary in a coal mine. Haters are not the problem … ignoring them is.
In fact, haters are your most important customers because when they complain, they provide free market research about what you can improve and how you can use content marketing to prevent future complaints.
The real problem for your business isn’t the haters; it is the people who have a poor experience but are not passionate enough about you and your company to take the time to say something about it. They are the “meh� in the middle, and they are what kill businesses.
And the people who love your business aren’t all that useful either. Praise is the most overrated commodity because when someone tells you what you’re great at, it teaches you nothing.
The best business lessons are born from criticism, not pats on the back.
Negativity is a great teacher
One benefit of paying attention to and embracing negative feedback is the ability to glean insights about your business that can improve your operations and processes.
Frank Eliason understands how this works and has captained these programs for very large companies that attract a high volume of customer feedback, including the television and Internet access company, Comcast, and Citi, where he served as the global director of the client experience team. Eliason is also the author of the excellent book @ Your Service.
“The best dollars and cents come when you start to make process improvements based on feedback. It’s harder to do with calls and easier to analyze online. You can start to understand where your frustration points are and fix those. Each of those has a monetary value to them,� he says.
He’s exactly right. And some of those process improvements can actually be turned into content marketing that educates customers before they have a chance to complain.
Amazon.com, for example, has an informal corporate edict that dictates that they should never have to answer the same customer question twice.
Because as soon as they get a question, they seek to proactively answer it — with content — so that in the future it never has to be asked again. Brilliant!
Why aren’t you doing that?
Why aren’t content marketers sitting with customer service professionals every week, discussing customer questions and problems, and figuring out how to get in front of those issues with content?
Pay attention to patterns of misunderstandings
Square Cow Movers is a small, family-owned moving company based in central Texas with four locations. They handle long-distance and commercial moves, but the company’s core service is local residential moves, according to managing partner Wade Lombard.
As a small operation, haters hit Lombard hard, and there is a tendency to take complaints personally because he and his immediate family are so intertwined in the business. It’s their life and their livelihood.
Lombard compares the emotional ties he has to his business to
 how he feels about his children.
“I can go to my son’s baseball 
game, and he can hit a home run, and I will feel like, man, that is my 
DNA, that is my offspring, I’m the best dad ever,” he says.
“And the 
very next day — this hasn’t happened, but it could — I can get a call 
from the principal who says, ‘Hey, your son’s in the office for disciplinary reasons,’ and I’m so disappointed in whatever action he took 
to land there.â€?
“And it’s similar with business,â€? Lombard says. “One day, I can feel so 
proud of what we’ve been able to build and what we’ve been able to 
do. And the next day, one of our guys can do something silly, or a 
client can call and they can have a legitimate complaint. And I 
will be so down in the dumps, my emotional spectrum will just 
plummet. And so I think for responding to complaints the key is to 
try to take the emotion out of it and say to yourself, ‘What can I 
learn from this?'” 

There are lots of details in the moving business, and much back-and-forth with customers, who are already on edge due to the stresses inherent in any move. Square Cow Movers wasn’t handling 
those communication details well, a fact Lombard discovered by paying attention to complaints. 

“What we found in the reviews was that most of the issues people
 had with us were when people were unaware of what time we were going to get there, or they were unaware of certain rules or regulations related to moving. And so what we started to do is pick up on 
patterns. We found these patterns of misunderstandings, and said to ourselves, ‘Okay, because this is a pattern, obviously we’re not doing 
our part to communicate properly,'” he says. 

Lombard and his team changed the company’s policy and procedures 
as a result, adopting a policy known as “Over-communication is a myth.”
Today, the company goes out of its way to inform and educate customers multiple times throughout the moving process — and 
negative feedback based on misunderstandings has subsequently plummeted.
Square Cow Movers created content that explains to customers what to expect, thus reducing confusion and dissatisfaction. This not only results in happier customers and better word of mouth, but also saves them real money because they don’t have to field as many complaints.
A catalyst for excellence
When you’re able to categorize and analyze negative feedback from customers, you end up with a treasure trove of potential content marketing topics.
If you’re unsure what to write about, what to create a video about, or what to host a webinar about, start by looking squarely at what your customers are complaining about.
That’s how you use feedback from haters as a petri dish for great content.
This post was drawn from Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers, about which Guy Kawasaki says: “This is a landmark book in the history of customer service.â€?
Written by Jay Baer, Hug Your Haters is the first customer service and customer experience book written for the modern, mobile era and is based on proprietary research and more than 70 exclusive interviews.
Buy the book directly from Jay now and receive instant digital access (before the book launches officially on March 1), plus get a ton of exclusive, pre-order bonuses worth thousands of dollars. For more information, visit jaybaer.com or HugYourHaters.com.
Reader Comments (12)
I disagree with the contention, “When someone tells you what you’re great at, it teaches you nothing.” Many times I have had coaching clients who believed they were just like all their competitors. However, when I encouraged them to think back on what customers said to them, they were surprised to find valuable points of difference. In some cases what was surprising was qualities they didn’t know they had. In other cases what was surprising was the value customers placed on those qualities. In all cases they were able to incorporate these findings into their marketing to differentiate themselves proactively and meaningfully.
Thanks for the great example on “Overcommunication is a myth.” I totally agree with that part!
Marcia Yudkin
Marcia –
Thanks very much for your comment. I’m delighted that you’ve been able to show people positives of which they were not aware. Keep on hugging!
I have clients who insist that they are the cream because they hear the praise feedback more loudly than they hear the negative feedback. People move away from the negative comments, cringing and then discounting those folks comments. I find it quite difficult to persuade clients to objectively listen to the less-than-thrilling feedback and to look for patterns in those remarks. Inevitably, I am told by the majority that there will always be haters so …ignore them.. or even worse, they wonder why I even mention the negative feedback! I do explain the importance, of course, but it’s challenging for people to react from a systematic place in their mind rather than the emotional spot. I was delighted to see this article. I’ll use it as reinforcement.
So glad you found value in it!
Jay — this is awesome. As a freelance content creator, clients are always asking me for new ways to come up with ideas for content. Can’t believe I’ve never considered this. Thanks!
right on! so glad you can use it!
Great post Jay and excellent advice. I believe haters can deeply affect your morale and your ability in creating good content and sometimes expose yourself. It’s really great to see the way you handle it and that you can successfully start with something negative and use it as something positive.
thanks Johnny~
Absolutely loved the line “The best business lessons are born from criticism, not pats on the back.”
It takes a wise and humble person to see through the negative, find the constructive, then create something great from it.
I am starting to wonder if I should stop sharing positive feedback (on twitter and via email) about products I like and use? Thought I was being helpful and supportive to the product creator but maybe I’m wrong.
Yes! I think businesses need those positive testimonials and reviews for potential customers to view.
I actually didn’t see HATERS like useful in your business. But man, after reading this, I might have a second thought. And i realized, yes, he is right. I can learn what is wrong in my services through their unbiased criticisms and use that to improve it.
I am not quite good in handling criticisms… but with your advice, I might learn to embrace it, rather than ignoring it.
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