The core tenet of customer service is that the customer is always right. In other words, “the customer is king”.

I like to take a more pragmatic view.

Whatever field you’re in, some of your customers are going to have unreasonable demands. Some will need a different product than the one you’re offering., With that in mind, the customer always needs to be heard.

All feedback is important if you can filter and interpret it correctly. And if you’re diligent in collecting information from your customers and clients, you can address most of their frustrations before they reach a boiling point.

This is a proactive, data-led approach to customer feedback. It builds lasting relationships. Some churn is an inevitable fact of life – but you can greatly reduce it if you pay attention to frustrations.

What are some common pain points?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to preventing and addressing customer frustrations. You need to be active in gauging your customer’s needs and priorities.

Nonetheless, there are a few issues that show up in every industry:

Complicated systems

It’s easy to lose sight of how an average person might experience your product or service. You and your team live and breathe your product, so everything about it seems self-explanatory after a while. The average customer might get overwhelmed or stuck in ways you can’t predict.

Commitment and pricing issues

Since the pandemic and the subsequent economic uncertainty, people and businesses have become more hesitant to enter long-term financial commitments of any kind.

Slow response times

Like it or not, customers expect immediate solutions. They don’t appreciate being “left on read”.

Lack of personal touch

This one might be even worse than customers feeling ignored. If they receive a response that seems generic and doesn’t address the crux of their issue, your customers will conclude that there’s no point in bringing up future problems with you. You alienate a loyal customer by being too inflexible, and you also lose out on a crucial data source.

What can you do to address these problems?

I work in customer feedback management. My company, Simplesat, is a survey tool that helps clients understand what their customers expect of them.

Also Read: 5 customer experience (CX) trends to consider in 2022

I’d like to share the main lessons my team, and I have learned across industries. To reduce frustration, you need to:

Be responsive 

In customer service, delays not only cause frustration but also cost time and money.

By being responsive to your customers’ needs, you show that you value them. This improves satisfaction and creates trust.

For example, my company employs an online fast-response system and a 24/7 human customer support team. We also keep updating our helpdesk with solutions to any new customer concerns we encounter.

But again, it’s not enough to just hear our customers out: we have to show that their input made a difference.

If a customer’s problem doesn’t have a clear solution (yet), do your best to find workarounds.  Consider keeping the customer’s information on file and email them as soon as you’re done implementing any relevant change to their concern.

Ask the right questions

You can’t improve your system unless you know what the problem is. But your customers aren’t always able to pinpoint all their issues in a way that’s convenient for you.

Put in the work necessary to improve communications.

Use customer surveys often and across different channels. Ask follow-up questions and open-ended questions to improve your understanding of customer frustrations. 

But don’t overwhelm them with an interrogation! Keep the focus on the issue at hand, and try to make the interaction fun, easy, and encouraging.

Keep things simple and offer choices

Minimising customer stress is key to reducing churn and building your reputation. With that in mind, it’s best to offer a few options to choose from.

For example, here’s how Simplesat addresses pricing concerns:

• We offer a flat rate, with a single price per tier of service
• There are no contracts or tie-ins to worry about
• It’s easy to move from one tier to another, and we’re upfront about the benefits of each
• Customers can leave any time they want with no penalty
• We only ask them to complete a form that explains why they’re leaving

Taking a straightforward approach makes it easier to predict churn rates and revenue growth.

But more importantly, your customers will appreciate having clear choices with no secret gotchas to worry about. Fostering integrity and transparency leads to great word-of-mouth referrals — and it helps you sleep at night!

Build on what customers already know

In the world of SaaS, in particular, customers want to work with tools they’re familiar with. 

Their goal is to keep their workflow simple. They don’t want to have to make decisions they don’t understand fully. Sometimes, their frustration comes from the fact that your tool is creating more questions than it solves.

Also Read: How to reduce churn: 5 essential customer retention strategies

Always remember that the customers might have a different experience than you and your team. They don’t understand the inner workings of your product, they just want a solution to their issue. Their convenience should be a priority at all times.

And most importantly

The best way to handle customer frustrations is to prevent them. 

You want to know what’s bothering your customers, and you need that information before the snag develops into a full-blown grievance. But discovering these issues takes some finesse.

Semi-satisfied customers don’t always give great feedback. They want to avoid rocking the boat, or they simply can’t be bothered to file a report. 

So, what can you do to get the information you need?

In my experience, quarterly NPS surveys are the best way to identify potential points of dissatisfaction. As these surveys describe a general user experience, your clients will be more willing to be objective (for example, they can complain about customer service without feeling like they’re getting someone in trouble). 

Remember: you can’t afford to rely only on information from closed tickets (surveys sent out after a problem has been identified). Keep a close eye on your customers’ heartbeats even when everything seems fine. With good enough surveys, you won’t have to worry about any secret frustrations.

Your company’s future depends on getting this right (no pressure!)

When customers think they’re not being heard, it creates a sense of disappointment and helplessness.

What do they do next? Well, they complain about it on Twitter.

Ignoring customer frustrations negatively affects your brand image and online persona. This leads to a cascading effect of increased churn, decreased interest, and damaged professional relationships.

Your future customers buy into real-time customer reviews and feedback. Make sure to show them that you care.

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On the second day of Echelon 2022 at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore, October 28, Steve Melhuish, Founding Partner at Wavemaker Impact, reminded the audience how 2018 was the year when many climate change-related records were broken. From forest fires to drought, the level of destruction we saw that year was devastating, providing a wake-up call for every party.

“There is no single biggest issue here [that dominates the conversation on climate change],” he explained. “But if you think of it from an entrepreneurial point of view, there’s no single biggest opportunity either.”

This indicates that the opportunities the climate tech sector provides are limitless. However, fellow panellist Grace Sai, Co-Founder of Unravel Carbon, warned of the possible challenges that climate tech startups might face, especially when they are reaching out to potential investors.

She spoke of when her company pitched for pre-seed and seed funding rounds from top global VC firms such as Sequoia.

“We were the first climate tech platform investment for many of these funds,” she said. “That was interesting to note because part of the pitch was also to educate our investors … because they were so new to this field and formed their thesis based on what they knew before, like software and everything else. But the climate crisis was new to a lot of people.”

Also Read: Amasia introduces impact assessment framework for climate tech companies

The two speakers were part of a panel titled “The state of climate tech in 2022: How we can create new urgency for green recovery”. Moderated by Robyn Tan, Managing Director of KrAsia, this panel aimed to look at how startups and investors can maximise their impact as a greater awareness of climate tech grows.

On the accessibility factor of climate tech solutions

Before we get to the point of understanding how climate tech startups in Southeast Asia (SEA) can move forward in making their impact on society, we need to understand what makes a “good” climate tech startup.

According to Angela Noronha, Director of Growth at Asia Second Muse, there is no significant difference from conventional businesses.

“I don’t think there is a need to rehash the definition because … a good company is a good company. The business fundamentals are the same. It’s more about what purpose are you pointing towards. Does it help to reduce or remove emissions?” she stressed.

It is also important to note that there are functions in climate tech that do not even have to be performed by a stand-alone company; there are many data platforms and tools that enable business owners to perform these functions without having the need to work with a third party.

For climate tech startups, success in growing their business can begin by understanding the potential hurdles customers might face when accessing climate-friendly products and services.

Also Read: How Third Derivative assesses the impact of a potential climate tech investment

As in any conversation regarding accessibility, the price range was one of the top hurdles customers might face. Melhuish highlighted in his presentation how the green label often puts products and services in the luxury category. “We fundamentally disregard that. We don’t believe that is the way because how would you get adoption if you’re expecting to pay extra for it?”

This matter of pricing and accessibility is also something that Sai touched upon. She shared that fewer than 10,000 companies operating in the global market are measuring their carbon profiles. She found the number “unacceptable”, but it was also important to understand that this did not always stem from ignorance: getting your carbon emission measured can be quite costly for businesses.

This is yet another proof that price points can be a barrier to accessibility. “Because if you don’t measure it, then you can’t manage it to begin with,” she stressed.

In addition to price point, Sai also highlighted the importance of “keeping things simple” for customers.

Take the example of plastic bags, which have been widely known for their negative environmental impact. Many businesses and customers opted to replace them with tote bags. Still, it is later revealed that one needs to use them 1,500 times to replace the impact of a common plastic bag –a piece of information that might haunt and overwhelm anyone.

“I feel it’s on experts and businesses to create better alternatives that simplify these decisions for big or small companies and consumers. That’s why something like Unravel exists to take all the data and simplify and point the way for a corporation to be like, ‘Okay, these are the three things that I need to do to reduce my emissions by 60 per cent.’”

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Singapore-based climate tech venture builder Wavemaker Impact has announced the first close of its debut fund.

The details remain undisclosed.

At the time of its launch in October 2021, Wavemaker Impact said it targeted raising US$25 million for its first fund. 

Its Limited Partners include Pavilion Capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures (the VC arm of the Philippine’s JG Summit Holdings), Kajima Ventures, US-based Grantham Foundation, and many family offices and high net-worth investors in Asia and Europe.

Wavemaker Impact is a climate tech venture builder that co-founds sustainability-focused businesses in Southeast Asia with proven entrepreneurs. Central to its investment thesis is the idea that successful climate tech companies must focus on value creation for their customers, not just emissions reduction.

Also Read: ‘The next generation of unicorns will be from greentech’: Wavemaker Impact’s Steve Melhuish

The VC firm has grown its presence in three key markets in Southeast Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam) and launched four new companies through its venture-building methodology. It plans to launch another eight to 12 new companies in the next two years, funding them from launch to Series A and, in some cases, Series B.

The company also stated that EDB New Ventures, the venture-building arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board, has supported Wavemaker Impact as a new strategic partner. Previously, Wavemaker Impact signed strategic partnerships with Enterprise Singapore (to help it grow its venture-building programme in Singapore) and the United Nations Development Programme (to assist it in stage-appropriate impact measurement).

Last month, Wavemaker Impact, along with Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GenZero, and Temasek, launched an agritech startup that brings together climate tech, agri-food, and venture-building capabilities to accelerate rice decarbonisation in Asia.

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Filipino circular economy startup Humble Sustainability has raised US$750,000 in an oversubscribed seed round led by Seedstars International Ventures.

US-based early-stage VC firm iSeed Ventures; angel investors, including Alan Wong, Co-Founder of Jakarta-based B2B marketplace Ula; and Sagar Achanta, ex-Product Leader at Amazon, participated.

Top Filipino investors and entrepreneurs Paco Sandejas and Richard Eldridge also joined.

Humble will use the funding to expand its network of partners and buyers and grow its team, including hiring department heads. The company also plans to bring its tech development fully in-house and start work on long-term initiatives like a carbon footprint tracker.

Also Read: Cloud communications firm Toku nets US$5M Series A+ for APAC expansion

The startup was founded in 2021 by CEO Josef Werker and COO Niña Opida, who used their combined years of experience growing and scaling companies in the past to build Humble as a means to create a more sustainable Philippines.

It was started with a vision to create a community where any item can be brought back into circularity. Humble’s advocacy of “circular living” reduces waste from both ends by preventing items from being disposed of and decreasing demand for the production of new ones.

Humble helps some of the largest e-commerce, logistics, and retail companies in the Philippines make their returns and excess inventory the hero while extracting high value from the items for their clients.

As Humble continues to grow, it hopes to become a leader in circular economy and sustainability in the Philippines, with initiatives in mind like carbon footprint tracking, innovation grants, and raw materials extraction.

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Phyx44, a biotech-enabled food science startup based in Bengaluru, India, has secured US$1.2 million in seed capital led by Better Bite Ventures.

Ahimsa VC, PeerCapital, Spectrum Impact, Rohit Gulati (MD & Partner at Boston Consulting Group), Sandhya Sriram (CEO, Shiok Meats), Big Idea Ventures, and Humane Society International also participated.

The startup will use the money to accelerate R&D, expand the team and work on the co-development of product formulation with key partners.

Founded in early 2021, Phyx44 develops animal-free milk proteins and fats for use in dairy products. It bets on microbial fermentation as the best way to replicate dairy. This technology teaches microbes to do what a cow or buffalo would do inside its cells.

Unleashing the power of these microbes will be instrumental in reducing animal suffering, land and water use, and greenhouse gas emissions from dairy production globally.

Also Read: Better Bite Ventures launches US$15M fund for early-stage alt-protein startups in Asia

The team at Phyx44 has already made whey and casein proteins (found in traditional milk) at the lab scale.

Phyx44’s products can be used in various applications, including ice cream, cheese, and baked goods, advancing the alternative dairy sector across dimensions of taste, functionality, and accessibility.

The company’s first product is expected to launch in 2024 in Singapore and India.

“We’re one of the very few companies working on key fat components alongside key dairy proteins because we believe this will go a long way in our ability to create a superior product,” said Bharath Bakaraju, Founder of Phyx44.

“The intersection of India being an agrarian economy, the largest producer and consumer of dairy, and a huge pharma producer provides a massive opportunity for Phyx44 to serve global demand for dairy ingredients and products sustainably,” said Jinesh Shah, Chief Investment Officer at Ahima VC.

“We believe that Phyx44 will leverage the base in India and provide affordable, sustainable dairy proteins and fats to partners and consumers globally. With its biotech infrastructure and talent pool, India can be the smart protein factory of the world,” said Michal Klar, Founding Partner at Better Bite Ventures.

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