The Unhappy Customer Concept

Facing the Truth About Feedback Online

Early in my career, I was managing social media for a university.

As part of this role I would often escalate student complaints to leadership.

One day, a student left a pretty scathing complaint on Facebook.

I escalated it internally among a couple division leads who investigated it and it turned out the complaint was unfounded.

On the way out of work I passed the head of the institution and just filled them in, so they were aware.

I said, “We’ve got this really unhappy student complaining online.”

They paused, looked at me, and asked, “How many students do we have?”

I replied, “30,000.”

They followed up with a simple but pointed question: “Do you think we can make them all happy?”

I hesitated and said, “No.”

That’s when they said something that stuck with me - "Then don’t bring me every unhappy customer. Bring me the ones where we’ve failed to honor our commitments. In this case, did we do something wrong?”

I explained that the issue had been thoroughly reviewed, and the student’s complaint was unreasonable.

They nodded and said, “At a certain scale, you’ll always have unhappy customers. The goal isn’t to make everyone happy - it’s to honor our commitments, present things reasonably, and quickly make things right when we get things wrong. If we’ve done that and someone’s still unhappy, that’s okay.”

That moment really reshaped how I view customer feedback, especially at scale.

It’s not about chasing universal praise and perfect 5 star reviews online, it’s about focusing on the integrity of our work, addressing issues within our control, and being ok with the uncomfortable reality that at the end of the day you can't make everyone happy.

Since then, I've referred to this as "The Unhappy Customer Concept" and shared it with others who manage communities or brands online.

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About The Author
Seth is the founder and CEO of Kanahoma, a San Diego-based performance marketing agency on a mission to build a better agency for organizations building a better world.

You can learn more about who we are and what we do at www.Kanahoma.com.