RTA Business Complaints Series: Why Do Customers Complain?

As part of the RTA Business Complaints series, this week we get to the root of the problem and ask, just why do customers complain.

Advice from RTA Business: Complaints are Dangerous!

In RTA Business’ experience of helping business owners up and down the country walk away with the best possible deal they can get when they decide it’s time to sell their company, we’ve found that complaints can be detrimental. Rack up enough, and be unlucky enough for a potential buyer to see them? They’ll think your firm has too many issues to handle, and that it’s not worth the effort.

That’s why you need to stop complainers in their tracks. So far we’ve featured articles on how best to do so, and how not to do so, now we want to address the larger issue of why they do so. If you know this, you can stop complainers before they even have a reason to open their mouths.

The Top Five from RTA Business

We’ve seen a lot of businesses deal with customer complaints in our time, and our experience has shown that these are the top five reasons a customer takes to the phone and expresses their dissatisfaction:

1) Faulty Product: The number one reason; if you’ve sold them a faulty product, of course they’re going to complain if only to get their money back.

2) Poor Customer Service: If a customer feels as though their trade isn’t valued, that you’ve sacked them off, they’ll complain out of sheer indignation. People don’t like to feel that their custom is unappreciated.

3) Not As Advertised: if a customer feels that your product or service is not as advertised, they will feel lied to. Nobody likes being lied to, and you can guarantee that they will complain and make sure everyone thinks you’re untrustworthy. A seriously dangerous complaint for your business model.

4) They’ve Been Left Waiting: If you’ve left a customer waiting, it doesn’t matter how effective your service is, or how valued you make them feel, they will complain, because you’ve wasted their time.  As they say, time is money.

5) Because They Can: Some customers will complain simply because they think they can get away with it, or because they’re having a bad day, or because they want their money back after they’ve looked at their bank balance and realised they haven’t got as much as they thought. Nothing you can do really except shut them down.

Once you know why a customer complains, make sure you deal with it before it can ever become a problem that causes a potential buyer to think that your business just isn’t worth the effort. 

Here are RTA Business’ Top Five Reasons a Buyer Won’t Purchase Your Company

If you’ve put your business up for sale and it’s not selling, you need to know why so you can rectify the problem and clinch that elusive buyer. That is why this week, RTA Business has listed its top five reasons a buyer is saying no to the opportunity to purchase your business!

As one of the leading business sales brokers in the UK, RTA Business consultants has been facilitating lucrative business acquisition deals for a fairly long time, and as such, we know what works and what doesn’t.

Get Proactive and Show a Buyer the Value of your Business

More to the point, we know that you have put your business up for sale because you want to make money. The longer you have to wait, the longer you have to wait to get your hands on the cash, which can be frustrating or down right obstructive.

In our experience if a buyer isn’t biting, there are several reasons why, and there’s always something you can do about it.  Get proactive so that when the buyer of your dreams comes along, sees the value of your business and makes you an offer, you can reap your reward for building up your company into one to be proud of!

In order to do that, you need to identify the problem, and in RTA Business’ experience it’s probably one of the following:

1     They Don’t Know You: Even with RTA Business on your side, you need to let people know who you are, otherwise, how will they know why our business is so valuable? Always make sure you have a killer marketing strategy.

2      They Don’t Know the Value of What You Do: We live in a world of sceptics and even profit margins sometimes won’t convince them of the value of what you do. Craft facts, statistics, data, testimonials etc. into your marketing strategy to present a solid case to potential buyers.

3      Profit Margins: In many cases, a buyer may lack interest because your profit margins are too low to catch their eye.  Diversify your service and show them other avenues they can take advantage of to increase revenue with your business.

4      They don’t understand Your Product’s Appeal: In other words, the buyer doesn’t really understand the consumer base you market to. In this case, double down on market research so can readily show the gap in the market that you cater to.

They Believe the Profitability of the Business Isn’t Transferable: A potential buyer may be of the opinion that the company only works because you are at its head. Convince them otherwise by highlighting the key role played by your employees and convince said employees to make a long term commitment to the firm.

Learn from Ryanair –Avoid a Price War

If you learn anything from the reports that Ryanair has seen its first profit drop in five years that have surfaced this week, it should be to avoid a price war. Profit drops are poison for those of you out there looking to sell your business.

The link between profitability and lucrative business sales are obvious. Any buyer interested in your business will be so because they see profit potential. If you can show them that they can use your business to make money, they’ll suddenly be a whole lot more interested in buying your business.

Naturally, this leads us to the conclusion that if you can’t show them high profit margins, then they’ll doubt that your business can make any money, and it’s more than likely they’ll end up saying no. Seeing profits drop as you’re selling, by the way, is particularly disastrous because it’s so immediate, it is bound to stick in any buyers mind.

The Misconceptions of a Price War

One of the easiest ways to drive down your profit margins is by getting involved in a price war. People usually get the wrong idea about this. The theory behind drastically cutting prices is that because you are cheaper than your competitors, people will come to you to buy the product/service you sell, because they’ll save money.

This is a terribly short sighted view of the realities of drastic price cutting policies. Yes, they can be lucrative in certain circumstances, but there are other things to consider. It may not, for example, attract enough customers to make it viable, as there may be issues of convenience or may not make enough money to prove profitable due to prices falling too far.

Ryan Air: A Case Study

Let’s look at what’s happening with Ryanair right now to see how drastic price cuts can have the opposite effect to those intended. It is a low cost airline that has been making money for years because it is popular with customers.

They recently went too far and engaged in a price war to compete with other low cost airlines. It has now seen its net profit fall to 523 million Euros (£426 million) for the year to March, down from 569 million Euros the year before.

This is why RTA Business Consultants suggest that if you’re looking to sell your business, you should think long and hard about whether engaging in a price war really will drive up your profit margins. If you’re not careful, it can actually damage them, turning off that potential buyer who otherwise would have signed on the dotted line and purchased your business!