We all know the famous business magnate, investor, author, philanthropist, and humanitarian; the one best known as the principal founder of Microsoft Corporation – Bill Gates. Having been listed as the second richest person in the world, his net worth is said to reach $100 Billion. Of course, his achievements were not easily gained. Before what we have seen from him today, he dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 because he really wanted to start his own company. Simply put, his success that we see today has not been an easy journey. There were ups and downs in his journey to success and because of that; he learned so many lessons in life so that he can grow from those lessons. Thus, that makes him $24 billion richer than he was five years ago and puts him in a two-man club with Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. And then Bill Gates said, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” As a person who works for a creative agency that provides SEO services for business owners, this got me thinking, maybe we can learn from what he said too. Every day in my life, I set my focus on growing my writing skill so that I can provide better SEO articles for my clients. Clearly, Bill Gates’ message has opened my eyes that it is not only about my skill in writing, but it is also about how my writing can bring benefits to my clients and how it is useful for my clients. And I hope today, with a piece of Bill Gates’ quote, you can learn from him too. Keep reading this article to find out!

If you aspire to be successful, your small business must prioritise customer needs

When you think of upgrading your product quality or adding more products to your business, you don’t think about what kind of products you need, but you evaluate and determine them based on your customer needs and perspective. For example, if your business is selling organic beauty masks, your customers might need a bowl, a spatula and a brush specially made for your masks. Not only that, you feel that mixing beauty face mask powder with plain water might not really be effective for your masks to work and with that in mind, you provide a rose water as the best mixing ingredient for your masks and of course, your customers need that prepared for them too. So, what can you learn from that analogy? You provide your customers what they need.

If your customers are not happy with your products, learn to improve

Complaints from your customers are not meant to take down your business. At least don’t feel that way. Whatever it is, complaints should not be treated as something negative. In fact, you should learn your flaws and help yourself improve them. The point of having a business is to never stop learning and doing what you can do to maintain your success and improve it. For example, if you own a restaurant business and set it up on Zomato, you might see your customers’ thought about your restaurant. What they like and what they don’t like about your restaurant should be your source of improving the quality of your restaurant. That being said, it doesn’t mean that you have to change the entire concept of your restaurant. Your brand is something unique that describes only you and no one else. What you need to change is the quality and that is not the same as changing your brand.

How to handle unhappy customers

I’m just going to say this once; nothing solves the problem of complaints from unhappy customers better than upgrading product or service quality itself. A simple apology means nothing if you repeat the same mistake. I once saw this complaint against the owner of a restaurant listed on Zomato. I was scrolling down on Instagram and I found this new BBQ restaurant nearby, so I opened my Zomato app to see the reviews first. I was so enchanted by the advertisements on Instagram, I mean the photos of the BBQ meats and food are really good and once you see it, you will instantly crave for their food especially for affordable price. However, when I saw the reviews on Zomato, I found that many disliked the BBQ place for the restaurant’s lack of professionality, services and quality. One of them even said that they were made to wait until 40 minutes to get their order served. But here’s the interesting part; how the owner responded to it. So, this customer said that she was so disappointed by the poor service the restaurant gave her. She shared it on social media and the owner responded! Sure the owner offered a full refund to the customer, but later the owner shared a screenshot of her complaints and mocked her on social media. One thing for sure, I saw the same kind of reviews just like hers about the restaurant. Do you know what that means? That means the owner should improve the restaurant quality and learn how to improve based on the complaints. However, instead of improving, the owner immaturely behaved like an upset teenager. If you want to be a business owner, you can still have pride in yourself but acknowledge the fact that you are a forever student.

When you got a complaint from your unhappy customer, apologise and do your best to do better and the only way for you to do better, you need to learn from that unhappy customer. Learn about what they need and why they don’t like your previous services or products, because only from that, you will improve something you lack and be better in the long run. When you have a business, it won’t be a business if you have no customer. Therefore, quality and improvement are necessary to help you gain more customers and make them stay. After all, what’s a business without its customers?