Unhappy customers are your greatest source of customer insights

5 mins

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Harsha Khubwani

December 12, 2024

A striking 91% of customers who are dissatisfied with a brand will leave without expressing their complaints. This silence creates a significant challenge for businesses, as it limits opportunities to uncover the root causes of negative experiences.

While some customers may choose to share their negative feedback through reviews or direct communication, many do not, resulting in missed opportunities for improvement. When customers do provide feedback, it represents a valuable chance to understand what went wrong with your product or service.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of customer sentiment, brands need to leverage Voice of Customer Analytics!

This approach allows companies to gain CX insights to uncover valuable information about customer expectations and experiences.

How does unhappy customer feedback help you with CX transformation?

Dissatisfied customers serve as a crucial wake-up call for businesses, prompting necessary changes and technology updates. Their feedback gathered through various channels, such as social media, online forums, and direct interactions with customer service agents, opens up opportunities to enhance the CX operations.

Utilizing Voice of the Customer (VoC) analytics, you can dig deeper into customer behavior and get actionable CX insights to run your CX programs smoothly. By hearing the voices of the customers, you can:

-> Create a robust feedback loop 

Establish a systematic process for collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback regularly. This ensures timely responses to issues and fosters a culture of continuous improvement.

-> Conduct regular sentiment analysis

Use VoC analytics tools to monitor customer sentiment over time. This analysis allows you to identify trends and adjust strategies based on evolving customer perceptions.

-> Segment your audience effectively

Utilize feedback data to develop specific customer segments. This capability enables targeted surveys and outreach campaigns tailored to each segment's unique preferences and pain points.

-> Implement action plans based on insights

Create actionable plans with clear timelines and responsibilities for addressing key issues identified through customer feedback. This will help you achieve responsiveness and commitment to improvement.

-> Monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Establish KPIs related to customer feedback, such as response times and satisfaction scores. This allows you to measure the effectiveness of your VoC initiatives and make data-driven decisions.

-> Empower customer service teams

Equip customer service agents with the skills to interpret VoC data and respond proactively to customer concerns. This capability enhances the overall customer experience by ensuring that agents are well-informed and prepared.

How do we generate customer insights from unhappy customers?

A very straightforward and efficient way to capture feedback and gain insights from unhappy customers is by using Clootrack, a patented AI-powered customer experience analytics tool!

With Clootrack, you:

  • Gain a comprehensive view of negative aspects affecting customer experience by analyzing millions of customer reviews and interactions across multiple channels, including CRM systems and live chat, all presented in an intuitive dashboard.
  • Aggregate data from both online and first-party sources, providing a holistic view of customer sentiment. This capability allows you to drill down into the data at a granular level, delivering insights 7.5X faster than traditional methods. Within seconds, you can identify which specific product aspects are causing customer unhappiness and understand how these issues impact the overall customer journey.
  • Utilize Voice of Customer (VoC) analytics, which uncovers authentic insights through advanced theme analysis that is unbiased and context-aware. Clootrack employs semantic analysis rather than simple keyword tracking, ensuring that you capture the nuances of customer feedback. This means you can pinpoint the root causes of dissatisfaction effectively.
  • Automatically filters out noise by removing duplicates, bot-like behaviors, and promotional content, ensuring that your insights are derived from relevant and clean data. Based on these insights, you can make informed decisions to enhance your products or services, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and retention. 

Examples of generating customer insights from unhappy customers using Clootrack

Example - 1

Using Clootrack’s CX analytics tool, a leading bank identified key factors driving customer dissatisfaction among both traditional and digital banking clients. 

They discovered that many potential customers were frustrated with the account closure procedures in digital banks, while traditional bank customers expressed unhappiness due to poor card services.

By delving deeper into these concerns, they uncovered specific issues faced by each segment.

The neobank/digital bank customers primarily struggled with account closures, account locking, and account deletions. Additionally, difficulties in accessing their accounts contributed to their overall dissatisfaction.

Conversely, traditional bank customers reported challenges related to knowing their card balances, increasing credit limits, issuing new cards, and obtaining card information. 

Recognizing these elements of customer unhappiness allowed the digital bank to address the issues within their app and online platforms promptly. As a result, they significantly reduced negative customer experiences.

Example - 2

A prominent QSR brand sought to identify pain points in the customer experience to enhance satisfaction and improve their bottom line. 

Clootrack revealed that issues with the ordering experience and app performance were major contributors to customer unhappiness.

Further analysis of these two primary concerns unveiled transformative consumer insights.

Customers' primary concerns regarding the ordering experience included frequent order cancellations and difficulties in completing orders. Additionally, poor app performance, including crashes and glitches, significantly contributed to their dissatisfaction.

Armed with these insights, the QSR brand took decisive action to improve both its ordering experience and app efficiency. These enhancements led to significant transformations and positive customer experiences.

Empower front-liners with CX insights to deal with unhappy customers

Front-line employees are the backbone of customer interaction, guiding customers from onboarding through post-sales support. They manage the feedback loop and are often the first to hear about customer experiences. After each interaction, it is crucial for front-liners to actively seek feedback from customers about their experiences and the service they received.

                                                                                 Source: Clootrack's 102 CX Expert report

Unfortunately, many companies only prompt customers to rate the performance of their customer service agents, which can lead to skewed feedback. For instance, if a customer receives a notification about a price increase from their Wi-Fi service provider, they may unfairly rate the customer service representative poorly despite the agent's best efforts. This disconnect prevents companies from fully understanding the root causes of customer dissatisfaction and can demoralize front-line employees who receive unjust ratings.

To effectively address these challenges, front-liners must be trained to ask the right questions. Sharing insights generated from customer review analysis can help them identify and address specific customer pain points during conversations. Often, customers themselves may not be aware of what is bothering them; therefore, equipping sales and support staff with customer insights enables them to empathize with customers and solve problems more effectively.

Furthermore, motivating and valuing employees within the organization encourages them to deliver exceptional service. When front-line staff feel supported and empowered, they are more patient and accountable in their interactions with customers.

When front-liners engage customers by asking about their emotions and experiences—beyond just service ratings—they can uncover valuable insights into what drives unhappiness. This approach fosters a more personalized customer experience and helps improve customer loyalty and retention.

Empowering front-liners with CX insights enhances their ability to address customer concerns and contributes to a more positive organizational culture. By valuing employee input and encouraging open communication with customers, businesses can turn unhappy feedback into actionable improvements that benefit both customers and employees alike.

How do we act upon unhappy customer feedback?

If you have a significantly lower audience volume, it will be easy to understand the conflicting priorities of customers and provide the experience exclusively to individuals based on customer feedback.

But, the larger the audience, the more complex the personalization process. So, sometimes, you can’t deliver an experience that provides customer satisfaction. In that case, you can try to segment customers based on their priorities and curate experiences for them. Some aspects that drive unhappiness or dissatisfaction can be made as customizable options to satisfy multiple customer segments simultaneously.

For instance, in the banking example, when the banking major identified that customers were unhappy with account closure and access issues, they could segment their audience based on these concerns. By prioritizing enhancements to their app and communication strategies for those specific segments, they effectively addressed dissatisfaction while maintaining overall customer satisfaction.

Ultimately, using insights from customer feedback, you can adapt solutions based on your niche and industry and create a more responsive and satisfying experience for all customers.

To sum up,

Customers can become happy or unhappy anytime, even if there is nothing wrong with your side. Many factors will influence their experience, including their personal preferences. As a brand, you must pick the insights from each unhappy customer's feedback and brainstorm them with your team to act upon them efficiently. To get a clear idea about the main unhappiness elements and insights into them, you can get the help of a robust customer intelligence platform.

Hence, always keep an eye on your customer’s experience and the unhappiness they experience. And turn these dissatisfied customers into loyal customers with the right decisions for customer success. 

Read More: Customer feedback trends in 2025: critical insights for CXO leaders!

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