DeepThinking - Customer Complaints

You run a wonderful workshop (you think) with a group of 20 people. You ask them to fill out feedback forms and it is all effusive. Except for one. One is highly critical, almost vicious. It happened to me in London once. Which one do you think about the most? You know the answer and so do I. Customer complaints need to be stacked up against customer behaviour. One person's vociferous heckling may give you the impression that your entire crowd is unhappy and ready to walk out the door. Are they walking out the door? Perhaps it's only a small clique of discontents who are distorting your reality of the whole? Hecklers tend to dominate, they tend to take over. You must not let them - in your mind. Remember all those happy faces during the day. Remember their questions, their direct eye contact, their excitement to put up their hands and engage with you. That's the behaviour part. Do they come back? Yes. Are your retention rates high? Yes. Listen to complaints by all means, but remember Abraham Lincoln's advice: you can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time. Next time a student complains ask these questions: is that representative of the whole? How could I find out? Are people leaving my practice? Am I losing more students these days? Get a grip on the whole, and do not be distracted by parts.