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Some Thoughts On Why Customers Complain

March 4, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

To expand a little on yesterday’s post about the customer always being right, Seth Godin recently made a post about why people complain.

One of the reasons he cites is, of course, to effect some sort of change. But he also identifies the following reasons:

Here are some others:

-to bond with others through shared experiences of dissatisfaction

-to let off steam

-to signal group affiliation

-to create hope that things might get better

-to increase one’s status by selfishly demanding more

-to gain affiliation by complaining on behalf of someone else

-to gain status by demanding more for others who can’t speak up

-to validate our feelings by seeking acknowledgment from others that their grievance is legitimate

-to preemptively lower expectations or manage blame

-to conceal our fear or embarrassment

-to avoid responsibility by pointing to someone else

-to establish dominance or control in a situation

Source

It can be worth considering that we often don’t know the motivations behind complaints. Often people legitimately want to bring about some sort of change or resolution. Other times the endgame might be an increase in status or affiliation in the estimation of others or perhaps even for oneself.

In one of my early posts which I can’t find with the blog search function I noted that while people may be used to the idea of a money back guarantee, it isn’t a refund they really want when they register a complaint at a performing arts event. That is just sort of a default concept that has circulated.

If you have spent time getting dressed, going to dinner, finding parking, perhaps arranging for a babysitter, a refund probably isn’t going to provide actual satisfaction unless you are motivated by a desire to establish dominance, lower expectations, or perhaps manage blame for problems you have created. Even then getting the money back isn’t as important as having gotten compliance.

In that original post I had advised finding other solutions to resolve a person’s complaints than sending them home with their cash back. Despite not being able to find the post, I know that is what I advised because I have been operating under that philosophy for decades. To a certain extent Godin’s list somewhat solidifies that approach for me because he lists even more reasons for complaints than I had conceived of which may be more important for the complainer to achieve than getting the money back.

But the range of solutions you need to offer may need to be broader than just offering vouchers to other performances or drink tickets. If someone is complaining to advocate for things like greater accessibility for themselves or others, the changes they seek may be more significant.

Audience Relations

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The Customer Is Always Right…

March 3, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

I have been seeing a number of claims that the full quote ends with “…in matters of taste.” As much as I would love that to be true given that retailers have been bludgeoned with the phrase over the years, it apparently is not. While Harry Selfridge is credited with creating The Customer is always right, there is no record of him completing it with a sentiment about taste.

Reinforces the idea that you always need to research such things before taking them at face value. Which is apt because according to wikipedia, the saying was used to create a sense of confidence in people at a time when caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, was the maxim of the day because malpresentation was so rampant.

While the phrase is attributed to various people, the intent was to assure customers in the early 1900s that the merchant would work to guarantee their satisfaction.

About 10-15 years later, various people were already observing that customers were taking advantage of the saying to bully merchants and engaging in a little misrepresentation of their own. So it has continued for over a century as witnessed by the fact that people are trying to append a few more words to the saying to create a counternarrative.

Certainly, more than a century later there is also plenty of misrepresentation coming at us through various media to warrant the use of caveat emptor as well.

Perhaps it is time for a new saying that both tempers customer demands and urges a degree of discernment before purchasing.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Management Philosophy, Marketing/PR

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Varying How You Make Donation Appeals

February 26, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Short, interesting piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy discussed research that found when non-profits varied their messaging on Facebook, they received more donations.

They are careful to say that these results may only hold true for Facebook as a social media platform and that they didn’t factor in other fundraising activities like direct mail.

They looked at 752 organizations which participated in a one day Omaha Gives fundraising events in 2015 and 2020.

The types of messaging the researchers categorized were:

Beneficiaries: Explaining how the group helps people.

Goals: Encouraging donors to help reach a fundraising goal.

Gratitude: Thanking donors for their gifts.

Mission: Focusing on how the organization helps people.

Social media engagement: Asking donors to share the post or change their profile picture to boost the campaign.

Solicitation: Asking for donations.

[…]

In addition to determining that using different types of messaging works best, we found that when nonprofits frequently share messages of gratitude or that highlight progress toward their goals, they tend to raise more money than if they just ask for donations.

Source

Obviously your mileage may vary as they say. Similar efforts on Facebook may not yield the same results in 2025. Five years is an eternity in social media years. Also the fundraising dynamics in Omaha may not be the same in other regions of the country.

One of the theories the researchers had was that varying the messaging helped reduce donor fatigue by not always using the same appeal language in every post.

Audience Relations, Fundraising

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Understanding Barriers To Entry By Visiting Stores That Cause You Discomfort

February 25, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Nina Simon posted that she had been interviewed on Kyle Thiermann’s podcast (also on YouTube if you want view a video of them talking.)

They talk for awhile about Nina’s transition from running Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) to writing murder mysteries while taking care of her mother as she dealt with an advanced cancer diagnosis.

Around the 40 minute mark, Nina starts to talk about how she came to be the executive director at MAH. I have written a fair number of entries over the years about Nina’s thoughts on creating an accessible environment for communities at arts and cultural organizations. One of the things she has talked about is creating figurative (though sometimes literal) new doors for people to enter to engage with the organization.

In this podcast episode she touches a little on the empathy that an organization’s staff needs to have to understand the barriers to participation people experience. She says she has gone to conferences and challenged people to go downtown and enter stores that make them feel uncomfortable and pay attention to what it is that causes that. Is it the decor? The way people dress? Rituals and practices you are unfamiliar with?

This resonated with me because I have had that experience and had the same thought about understanding how new audiences can feel ill at ease entering arts and cultural spaces. I have had the experience going to speak to social groups who have traditional practices they enact, but also going into an unfamiliar restaurant and not knowing where and how to order.

As I think about it, I have probably felt more comfortable navigating a new to me performing arts venue than some restaurants.

Nina mentions that you can put out all the messaging you want about people being welcome and how they should feel comfortable wearing what they want, but if the behavior of the other people they encounter sends a contradictory message your efforts may come to naught.

She says even if all elements align to reinforce the welcoming message you hope to convey, people aren’t going to trust your organization as much as they trust their friend’s rock band or knitting circle. Forging alliances and relationships with affinity groups in the community can help cultivate that trust.

Nina also mentioned that it was pretty humbling to realize no matter how much effort they put into creating welcoming environment and programming, it would never increase the engagement with the museum as much as the presence of a good coffee shop and bar in the food hall that was developed next to the MAH.

Take a listen for these and other insights. Also, check out her book on engaging audiences, The Art of Relevance. I just bought my fifth copy — I gave two as gifts, but two other copies I lent out never came back to me.