As Australian SMEs invest more in marketing, inevitably some people won’t be thrilled with what they see or receive. Handling these complaints effectively isn’t about damage control; it’s a powerful opportunity to strengthen customer relationships and improve your marketing performance. We see too many businesses miss this chance, viewing complaints as a negative instead of valuable feedback.

The key is to shift your mindset. A complaint isn’t necessarily about something *wrong* with your product or service. Often, it’s about a mismatch between expectation and reality, or a misunderstanding created by your marketing messaging. Here’s how we recommend approaching it:

• Respond quickly and publicly (where appropriate): Acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours, even if you don’t have a solution yet. Public responses on social media demonstrate transparency. However, move sensitive details to a private channel like email or phone.
• Empathise and validate: Start by acknowledging the customer’s frustration. Phrases like “I understand why you’d feel that way” or “That sounds incredibly frustrating” can diffuse tension. Avoid being defensive.
• Investigate and understand the root cause: Don’t just address the surface-level complaint. Dig deeper to understand *why* the customer feels this way. Was the marketing promise unclear? Did the campaign target the wrong audience?
• Offer a genuine resolution: This could be a refund, a discount, a replacement, or simply a sincere apology and explanation. The resolution should be proportionate to the issue and demonstrate you value their business.

Beyond resolving individual complaints, we strongly advise analysing trends. Are you receiving similar complaints repeatedly? This signals a systemic issue with your marketing strategy. Perhaps your ad copy is misleading, your landing pages aren’t delivering on their promises, or your customer segmentation needs refining. Tools like customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help you track and categorise complaints, making this analysis easier.

Remember, a well-handled complaint can turn a dissatisfied customer into a loyal advocate. By viewing complaints as a learning opportunity and actively seeking to improve your marketing based on feedback, you’ll not only retain existing customers but also build a stronger, more resilient brand for continued growth into 2026 and beyond. Your next step should be to establish a clear process for logging, responding to, and analysing all marketing-related complaints.