MBA2445 The Real Reasons Why Your Customers Are Unhappy

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show. No fluff, just the good stuff with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenhom. And in today's lesson, you will learn the real reason why your customers are unhappy. Are you having a tough time getting real traction in your business? Are you kind of getting your customers piecemeal one by one? Or maybe you're dealing with really harsh reviews on Google or on DripAdvisor or Trustpilot or Capterra or any other review site. Maybe your inbox is filled with complaints. Maybe your customer service team is flooded with angry customers and asking you how to deal with it.

0:49And you're just a little bit lost why this is all happening. Well, today's episode is for you. Even if you are not bombarded with complaints, but you get a few complaints or a few issues with customers, and you wonder why, you're going to get a lot out of today's episode. I'm going to break down the three main reasons why your customers are unhappy. Yep, without even knowing your business, without even knowing what you do, this is really the root cause. These three reasons are why you're dealing with these problems. I've been running businesses for over two decades and through that long period of time, I've been taking notes.

1:24I've been studying why customers can be unhappy, what causes them to be unhappy. And I boiled it down to these three main reasons. And if you work on these three areas, you're going to see your business turn around and really start to grow because it costs far more to get more customers than to keep the ones you have, to keep them happy. And when they're happy, they tell other people and they bring in more happy customers. And it becomes a flywheel effect where you have a self-marketing business. You have a business that actually grows on its own. It's a wonderful thing. So let's get there. Let's solve these customer problems.

2:01Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. There was this business owner I was working with that was selling marketing services to tech companies. They would help them create their online funnels, their email marketing campaigns, build out their landing pages, do all that stuff for them so they can grow and sell more of their software product. The service that they were providing was fantastic. It was great. It was good work. The emails were well written. The automations were done properly. The landing pages were beautiful. But he had a lot of customer complaints. the customers would constantly send emails dissatisfied, and he couldn't understand why.

2:39After some coaching, we decided to pivot his business and sell to a different market, to sell to small business owners in the physical world, like restaurant owners, dentists, doctors, lawyers, physiotherapists. And when he made this pivot, all his problems seemed to disappear. No complaints, nothing but praise, five-star reviews on Google, and he was totally shocked. Same product, same service, same things he was doing before, different market. And that leads me to the first reason why customers will complain. And that's product market fit. Product market fit means that whatever you offer your customers, whether it's a product or service or whatever, it fits perfectly with the people that you're offering it to.

3:24In the example I gave you, this business owner was giving amazing service, a great product, delivered amazingly well. But the market he was in, the people he was serving, tech founders or SaaS businesses, they didn't really value the service that much. Why? Because they're very tech savvy. They know how to put a landing page together. They're just basically hiring this person to do it for them. So they're highly critical. They're very sophisticated as a customer when it comes to the delivery of this product, to the actual end product. They would nitpick about page speeds or maybe they would nitpick about why is this written in HTML and CSS?

4:02I want it in JavaScript or I want it in Node. And from his perspective, it does the job. It gets you the leads. Why are you nitpicking about something like that? So the product and the service itself didn't really fit the customer. The customer didn't actually value what he was offering in terms of creating these funnels, creating these services, creating these pages to bring in leads. On the flip side, when he pivoted to local businesses, these business owners were really desperate for his service. They're not very tech savvy, so they don't really care about how he does it, just do it. They feel like this is a huge relief.

4:40They have a huge amount of value for what they do because they have no idea how to do this. They have no idea how to implement this. They're just happy that somebody's doing all the legwork and getting the leads and creating these funnels and making this marketing thing happen for them so they can get more business. And they're even willing to pay more because they're not really sure how much it's going to cost them to do it themselves because they can't do it themselves. And the product market fit was beautiful. He has less complaints. He has higher reviews. He's able to charge more now. He's able to get more referrals all because of product market fit.

5:14Now, a word of caution about product market fit. Product market fit is not a once and done thing. It's not something where you're like, okay, I found my perfect customers, my perfect audience, my perfect market for my product or service. They love it. And I'm golden for the rest of my business life. No, you must evolve with your customers because your customers needs will change over time. The technology will change. What will be required from you will change. For example, during COVID, a lot of these local businesses needed QR codes. So people can use QR codes to pull up the menu on their phone.

5:49They didn't know how to do it, but they requested it. So they had to change or add to their product and evolve to the market. But I start with this reason why a lot of customers complain. But I start with this product market fit or bad product market fit as one of the number one reasons why customers complain because it's so imperative to get it right. If you get this wrong, it's very hard for you to have a successful business in the long term. You might be able to hustle your way a year or two or even three, but eventually it's going to get exhausting because it's just a revolving door of losing customers, getting customers, losing customers, getting customers.

6:28You want compound interest, meaning you want to keep customers as long as possible, bring in new customers. That compounds over and over. They tell other people, they bring them in to your ecosystem, into your business. And that's what makes real businesses grow fast, right? Really start compounding the gains. Without product market fit, it's nearly impossible to do that. It's like having a leaky bucket. So that's the first reason why customers are complaining. Second reason, and this one is going to sting a little, but it's the truth. It's what I found with so many business owners, including myself, okay?

7:02I'm not immune to this. And that's your product is good, but it's not great. In order for people to buy your product or service, it not only has to be good, it has to be great because they have to continue to buy from you for your business to grow. When I say great, I mean they are compelled to tell other people. Have you ever been to a really amazing restaurant, had a great night? The food is incredible. The service is great. The ambiance is wonderful. And after going to that restaurant, you can't help but tell everybody you know, hey, you got to go to this restaurant. It's amazing. You're not on commission.

7:36You're not getting a kickback. But it's so good. You feel like if you tell somebody else that you are doing them a favor. That's the kind of product or service you need to create because this makes your life a whole lot easier. When you have a good product, you're in a situation which I call you don't have enough value on the table. When you're running a business, you often use a lot of different software tools, a lot of different services. I definitely spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of that in my career, if not millions with our software company, Webinar Ninja. But there are some of those products that I use that was just good enough.

8:15They didn't actually leave enough value on the table. They charged a lot of money for something that's pretty mediocre. And as soon as a competitor came out with a similar product that was just even a little bit better, even if it was at a similar price, we would just hop off and use that service because we were kind of fed up with not really getting a lot for our money. You leave a bad taste in your customer's mouth when they feel like they're kind of getting gypped, where they feel like, okay, this is good and all, it's doing the job, it's fine, but I'm paying a lot of money for this, I'm not really being wowed.

8:47People need to be wowed. People need to feel like, wow, I'm getting a lot of value here. This is incredible. I can't believe this is how much I'm paying for everything I'm getting. This is why I always like to say, try to 10x your value as much as possible when you offer your product or service, because then you're leaving a lot of value on the table. People feel like, I owe this company something, at least I could do is stick around. So take a hard look at your business right now. Take a look at your products. Take a look at your services. Are they great? Are they wow products? Are they products that people are compelled to tell other people about?

9:21Be honest. And maybe a couple of your products are like that and maybe some products are not. What can you do to make them great? Maybe it's worth considering cutting off the products that are not so great and focusing on the great ones. Steve Jobs did this one. He took over as CEO of Apple for the second time. He came back. He saw all these products. He said, no, we're not doing all these products. We're going to focus on these products only that are actually moving the needle that are actually great. We're going to make them even better. And this is how we're going to bounce back. Less is more when you have something special going on in your business.

9:56When you have something that actually makes people stop and say, this is incredible. I love it. Now, when you don't have wow products, you will get some complaints, but the majority of the people are going to do nothing, which is almost just as bad. At least with complaints, you're getting feedback and you know how to improve your business. But there's a lot of silence with okay products, with good products, where people just don't write in. They don't give reviews. They don't tell other people. They don't send any messages to customer support. They're just kind of like, okay, you know, this thing kind of does its job and that's it.

10:32They don't send in an email and say, guys, you built something incredible. I love this product. Thank you so much. So even if you have no complaints, examine your business because this could be kind of a slow death. It could be a very silent and deadly killer for your business when people don't actually reach out and give positive feedback. The third and final reason why your customers are complaining is because of how, not what, how you are delivering your product or service. So you can have a stellar product, an amazing tool, an amazing service, something that solves a real pain that people have, and they really love the fact that you're solving this pain.

11:15But how you solve it, the way you deliver this product or service is not so great. And therefore, people don't even see that anymore. They don't see the positives. All they see is the delivery being screwed up. One of the companies that is brilliant at this is Amazon.com. They knew early on that if they had great products, it wasn't enough. They had to make sure the experience of getting the product is seamless and just as good as the product itself, if not better. This is why they invested heavily on their actual website, making it easy to navigate, making it easy to search, making it easy to add things to cart.

11:51In fact, they have like one-click checkout, which is an incredible invention. All these things are the experience of the actual product. What Amazon does is that they send products to your house. They're a store, but how they do it is really their hallmark. If you don't get in on time, they'll give you a refund. If you open the package and it's not what you expected, they'll take care of the refund for you or the returns. If it gets lost in the mail, they got your back. I even sometimes, my mistake, ordered the wrong product and they take care of me. They understand it's not enough just to have great products, but how they interact with the website, how they interact with the customer service, how they interact with the delivery system, all matters.

12:32Here's another example. With our software company that we had for over nine and a half years, Webinar Ninja. Early on, we realized that it's not enough to have a great piece of software that makes it easy for people to create webinars and run live classes and workshops and sales webinars and all kinds of stuff. We realized that a lot of people need a lot of handholding when they get started. Otherwise, they won't try it out. They won't see the value. And if they don't see the value, they're going to cancel while they're on trial and not be billed. They won't be a customer. They won't convert. So how we actually provide the means for somebody to use our product actually matters.

13:10So we actually built a custom-built onboarding system for Webinar Ninja, meaning when somebody signed up for Webinar Ninja, within seconds, they are creating their first webinar. We guide them through it with these prompts. We show them all the tools along the way, all the different things you can do with Webinar Ninja. We showcase the value very early on. Why? Because we learned that when somebody buys your product, especially in software, the moment they buy it and they put their credit card in and they get charged, that's the hottest, most interested they'll ever be. So you have their full attention.

13:42And if you have their full attention, you should use it. You should show them all the amazing things that you can do. That's what we did. And we saw conversions, trial conversions skyrocket after this onboarding was implemented. Because it's not enough to have a great product, how you deliver it, how you offer, how you show it to people, how you show them, hey, you didn't make a mistake. This actually has a lot of value. Let me show you what it's all about. If you've ever been to a really nice hotel, they know this is so true. They do this really well. One of the pains about checking into a hotel is how long it takes.

14:14You've got to fill out forms. You've got to sign your life away. They're going to list out all the terms and conditions and the policies and how much money they're going to hold and all that kind of stuff. And then they give you your room key and then they tell you where you're at and they give you all these instructions. They give you all this information. It's like an information overload. They're like, here's when breakfast is. This is the Wi-Fi password. This is where the gym is. And these are the hours of the gym. And it's just kind of too much. The best hotels do this all beforehand. When you're making the booking, they get all your information.

14:41You agree to terms online. You don't have to worry about that when you get there. Usually the best hotels, what they do is when you get to the reception, you give them your ID, they look you up, they say, welcome. They give you a welcome drink. They give you a hot towel. Most people when they're traveling, they're tired. They just came from the airport. They came from the hustle bustle of the flight. They need to relax. They tell you to take a seat and then they just give you your room key and maybe some information in a piece of paper that has everything they're about to tell you or what other hotels do, like give you a whole laundry list of information.

15:11No, they just give you a piece of paper with all the information that you could read when you're in your room comfortable. They take your bags for you and they basically remove all the pain and agony of checking into a hotel. How you do anything matters. So look at your business. Look at the product or service you're offering. Is it painful to buy your product? Is it painful to be serviced or be a customer of your product? Is it a delightful experience? Walk through step-by-step. What do they do? How do they buy? How do they sign up? Is there an email exchange? If you're in the services, like say you have a marketing agency or you're a design firm or you're an engineer and you do websites, this is so important.

15:51I've worked with so many freelancers, I've worked with so many firms, and they get this so wrong. It's so hard to communicate with them. They don't really have a system. They use tools that are complicated when actually, if you just email the customer back and forth and give them regular updates, they will be happy. Well, there you have it, guys. Those are the three reasons why your customers are complaining. Number one, product market fit, huge. Number two, you have a good product, not a great product, not enough value on the table. And number three, how you actually deliver your product or service is falling short.

16:24If you shore up these three areas, I'm confident that you will see happier customers. You'll see people that appreciate you. You'll get better reviews, better referrals, better customers coming in, and you'll be happier. Your team will be happier. You'll enjoy working in your company. You'll have a better day every day you show up to work. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show. If you've gotten value from this podcast today, previous episode, whatever it might be, the best way to show your love, the best way to give back to us is to subscribe to the podcast. Go ahead and do that right now, whether you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast player.

17:02Make sure you follow us, you subscribe, so you get our next episode automatically, and tell that algorithm, hey, this show is amazing. As the show grows, we grow, meaning we reinvest into this podcast to make it better and better every day. Thank you, Advance, for being part of the community. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you're going through these exercises today and you're getting a little overwhelmed, you're getting a little bit like, oh, my business has to do so many things to get better. Don't worry. There's always room for improvement. We've all been through that, right?

17:29We all have to go through that recognizing, hey, I'm not great right now, but I can be great. I have the means to be great. Make 1 % improvement every day. Just try to get better at something today and build upon that tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day. You, your business, your teammates, everybody around you will thank you for that small effort on a daily basis. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

18:13Thank you.