·Read this text taken from an article on customers’ complaints. ·Choose
the best sentence from the opposite page to fill each of the gaps. ·For each
gap 9-14, mark one letter (A-H) on your Answer Sheet. ·Do not use any letter
more than once. How to Handle Customers’ Complaints ...
Complainers can damage a company faster than you can say "I’m sorry." But the
companies with savvy are turning them into loyal buyers. Fred Jerome survived a
frequent flyer’s nightmare. Boarding at 9:30 Pan Am shuttle in New York one
morning, he expected to arrive in Boston in plenty of time for an afternoon of
business meetings. However Logan Airport was blanketed in fog and the pi- lot
circled for two hours before landing in Hartford Connecticut, to refuel. "No one
may leave the plane" the pilot announced, frustrating passengers who wished to
switch to a rental car or use a telephone. When he then said he was returning to
La Guardia Airport some passengers protested in fury. He relented and finally
landed in Boston about 4pm. Jerome caught a flight home and arrived in New York
at 6.30. His day was ruined and he was exhausted and angry.
What should the company do for angry customers to those who have tackled the
issue almost anything it can. (9) Simply listening to
complaints boosts brand loyalty that is, a customer’s tendency to buy again.
"The key is getting customers to complain to the company rather than just to
their friends", says John Goodman president of a consulting firm that has been
studying corporate complainers for over a decade. (10) The
average return for makers of consumer durables like washing machines and
refrigerators is 100%. In other words, if manufacturers spend $1 million on
handling complaints, they get $2 million in benefits. For banks it is as much as
170%. The payoff can be even higher in retailing where top quality service is
essential for keeping customers. Maryanne Rasmussen, vice president in charge of
world-wide quality at American Express says, "The formula I use is’ Better com-
plaint handling equals higher customer satisfaction equals higher brand loyalty
equals higher profitability." The growing evidence that customer happiness
affects the Profits and Loss report is one reason that firms like Coca-Cola and
British Airways have invested billions of dollars to improve complaint
handling. (11) Pan Am’s response to Fred Jerome was a
case study of how not to handle complaints, At the end of Jerome’s 9 hour
ordeal, a Pan Am steward advised him to complain to the customer service unit at
the airline’s New York Headquarters. Jerome went to the headquarters only to be
told that Pan Am’s LaGuardia Airport office handles complaints about the shuttle
service. (12) He finally reached a representative who told
him coldly, We are not responsible for delays caused by the weather. Jerome
expressed his frustration by writing a column for the New York Times.
(13) John Siefert, a vice. president of the Eastern Air Lines
shuttle, sent Jerome a sympathetic letter of. fering him a free flight. Jerome
declined. I would have been happy with an apology from Pan Am he says. Pan Am
Says it wrote to Jerome. He says he still has not heard from the airline and now
will fly the Pan Am shuttle only as a last resort. (14)
80% of complaints are from travelers who are dissatisfied with the
airlines’ responses to problems. Interestingly the three airlines including Pan
Am, and Eastern which lest the most money last year also attract the most
consumer complaints. Far fewer complaints come from fliers on the healthiest US
airlines. Dan Smith director of consumer affairs at the International Airline
Passengers Association in Dallas, says these carriers satisfy unhappy clients by
always giving a full explanation if they can’ t comply with a request for
action. A What should the company do for angry customers B Studies show
customers tell twice as many people about bad experience as good ones, so
complainers who are left unhappy can ruin a company’s image. C Customers seem
to appreciate companies more if top managers hear their complaints. D some 20
letters and calls from other annoyed air travelers. E The person he tried to
contact at the airport was not there, and omitted to reply to a message Jerome
left. F The firm used dozens of business factors to calculate the return on
investment involved in a company establishing service units that handle
complaints and inquiries. G In the airline industry, the correlation
between customer contentment and profitability is strong. H Programs include
intensive staff training, liberal refund policies and ways of helping customers
make complaints to the company like free phone calls.