What % of web site visitors does an email complaint represent?

If a visitor is upset on your site and emails you, it generally means that others experience the same issues, but don't take the time to let you know. Does anyone know any rough percentages of what that one preson represents? Does one angry customer who provides feedback represent 100 others who don't provide feedback? Or is it more like a 1 to 1,000 ratio?

What % of web site visitors does an email complaint represent?
It completely depends, but it's usually said that for every complaint you get, you can count on the fact that at least 10 other people will know about it. In other words, it's not so much that that one email represents more of the same complaint. Rather, it means that at least 10 other people will soon hear about how upset that one person was because he/she will tell friends, family, coworkers, etc. about his/her experience.





If you don't already have it, you need to get some type of tracking device that tells you how many hits you're getting on your web site. If thousands of people visit your site every day, and you get one complaint about one little thing, you can probably just write a polite response, thanking the person for the feedback, and not worry too much about it. It's only when you start to see patterns in relation to the average amount of hits you get that you might want to consider a re-design.





Just my 2 cents. I can't stand knee-jerk reactions to customer complaints. It's important to acknowledge complaints -- it's not always crucial to change something just because someone complained.