Every business has them, some more than others. They're the ones who just love to tell you (and anyone else with ears) what you're doing wrong.The old statistic used to be: someone who has had a good service experience will tell 3 or 4 others, someone who has had a bad service experience will tell 15. But there's one more group. Someone who has had a bad experience,
that is quickly fixed, will tell 30!Now multiply that by the power of the Internet and BOOM! You're talking thousands!So what do you do with your Active Detractor?They just want to be heard. So step
one is easy - LISTEN.They want to feel significant. So give them SIGNIFICANCE. They want to feel vindicated. So provide them with A SOLUTION.Who would complain about an advert?Vanarama are a brilliant client of ours who live, eat and breathe outstanding service. If you're a van driver in your late twenties or thirties you will have seen their adverts. If you aren't, you probably won't have; they're very good at targeting their primary market.They have (let's just be frank here) cheesy adverts with earworm tunes designed to get to your core very quickly.Not everyone likes them.In fact some people have actually complained to Vanarama about their latest advert!Who would do something like that?Yep, it's your old friend the Active Detractor.Andy Alderson is the MD of Vanarama. He's passionate about customer service (and an advocate of our Hearts and Minds Programme), he's from the North East, and he has a wicked sense of humour. Three out of three then!So what did he do when he received this letter from a certain Mr Taylor:I am writing to you to tell you how much I dislike your television advert. It's terrible. Just, terrible. And I know you'll be saying, "We want it to be cheesy and tacky because it will stick in our target audience's minds." (and that's exactly what it's done and it's incredibly frustrating for me), and you'll probably reference the 'Go Compare' advertisements when it comes to
tacky ideas.
What exactly is your target audience?! I mean, that's a rhetorical question. It's most probably predominantly heavy-goods builders aged between 18 and 40. This is where I'm frustrated. Singing a primary school hymn remake in the manner which you've published is embarrassing. And yes, I get it that you don't find it necessary to blow a load of cash on an advert, so you've kept it
low-cost and awful, may I say?
I'm well aware that I'm probably speaking to the wrong person as you may have called in a media-based company to help broadcast it.
Regards,
JonathonYou can watch the advert he's referring to here.Here's the best bit. Jonathan is on
Twitter (lots of Active Detractors are) so the first thing he did when he received Andy's response was he tweeted it. It has since been tweeted and retweeted multiple times. If you'd like to see Andy Alderson's response and how he turned Jonathan from being an Active Detractor to a Raving Fan I've posted the letter he sent here. So, Hearts and Minds...
It's going well, in fact so well that we are unable to
take any more people for our next Hearts and Minds Programme in June.
But pre-registration is now open for our September Programme. Email or call us if you'd like to know a little more about it.
Be Brilliant!
Michael Heppell
PS Remember, the next time you have an Active Detractor, handle them well and you could soon have a Raving Fan.
PPS You can tell when an advert is working when the parody versions appear. Football fans might like this one.
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