Build for the Customer Complaint You Dread Most

May 23, 2025

Let’s talk about that one support ticket.

You know the one…

The subject line makes your stomach drop. Nobody on your team wants to own it. And you’ve built around the issue, not through it.

That problem?

It’s not an edge case.

It’s the heart of your business.

🚫 What Avoidance Looks Like in Real Life

Here’s what happens when we hate a problem:

  • We delay responding.

  • We patch it, not solve it.

  • We build features near it—but never fix the root.

  • We tell ourselves: “That’s just part of the business model.”

But here’s the thing:

That problem is already shaping how your customers perceive your company.

You just haven’t claimed it.

🧭 Use Dread as a Design Signal

Your worst support ticket is actually your clearest roadmap.

It’s showing you:

  1. Where trust is breaking down

  2. Where your team lacks clarity or conviction

  3. Where your market expects more than you’re delivering

Avoided problems become assumptions.

Assumptions calcify into culture.

Culture turns into churn.

🛠️ How to Turn Pain into Product

Here’s how to start using the problem you dread as a design asset:

1. Pull the receipts

  • Go into your support inbox or ticketing system.

  • Find the 3 tickets that:

    • Took the longest to resolve

    • Required your personal involvement

    • Created internal debate or finger-pointing

2. Deconstruct the real problem

Ask:

  • What wasn’t clear to the customer?

  • Where did our system fail before the issue appeared?

  • What policy, product limitation, or story allowed this?

3. Write the “If We Were Proud” response

Instead of damage control, write a response as if:

  • You loved this customer

  • You wanted the world to read your reply

  • Your company’s future depended on handling this with grace and guts

4. Ship something that makes that response true

Could be:

  • A new internal workflow

  • A UX tweak

  • A feature change

  • A new default setting

  • An automatic refund, or even… a refund policy rethink

🧠 Founders Who Solve the Dreaded Problem Win

Because here’s the punchline:

What you avoid, your customer absorbs.

If you won’t own it, they will define it.

And the fastest-growing companies?

They build in the direction of discomfort.

Try this:

  • Pick one ugly support ticket this week.

  • Treat it like an urgent product brief, not a mess to contain.

  • Fix what it reveals, not just what it caused.

Then tell your team: “This is who we are now.”

Best,
Peter Delle