It is an unavoidable fact of running any business that customers will complain. Whether it is a legitimate complaint or not, how you handle these ‘negative inputs’ can help your business, or utterly destroy your reputation.
And there are a few simple steps to follow that can ensure that you handle customer complaints well and, hopefully, turn those negatives into positives.
Read On:
Nine social media sins
Seven steps for reviews customers trust
Are your customers happy?
Sounds like asking for trouble, but it actually helps to make it easy to let people complain. Any kind of feedback is helpful to developing your business, so you want to make it simple for consumers to get in touch with you whatever they want to say to you.
Place ‘contact us’ buttons and forms at prominent locations such as the store front and checkout pages. Also include links such as “Are you satisfied? Tell us about your experience here” on storefronts, checkouts and sales confirmation pages.
Listen to what they say
When a customer complains the first thing you must do is listen and take it seriously. Let them explain their problem in their own terms and let them rant and be cross – shutting them off at the ‘shouty stage’ will be frustrating and ultimately backfire.
Better to let them vent their anger: they will then be easier to deal with once they have got it off their chest.
Sympathise and empathise
Once they have made their complaint – or if appropriate while they are making their complaint – sympathise with them as to how this is a sorry state of affairs and offer your empathy as to how you too would be as angry as them if it had happened to you.
This will help diffuse their anger and make them feel that you are ‘on side’.
Respond quickly and affirmatively
As part of the sympathizing and empathizing, make sure that you then respond quickly and affirmatively to the complaint. If it has been emailed or come from an online form, then acknowledge the complaint as soon as possible – in polite, sympathetic and affirmative terms.
Then ask questions and ascertain as much information as you can about what they expected from you, what they received and what the problem created by the difference between the two actually is.
Switch from listening to solution mode
It is important to listen and gather the facts and make the customer feel that you are working with them to resolve this, but it is equally important to quickly and efficiently shift from ‘listening mode’ to ‘solution mode’ and to start to talk them in terms of why you think the problem occurred and what you are proposing to do about it.
Where ever possible, build in a time line and manage their expectations around this. If it is going to take several days to actually rectify the problem or refund them, tell them and tell them straight – with a full explanation as to why it will take this time.
It is also important to agree a solution with the customer so that both you and they are happy at that point with how the process is going to be resolved.
When appropriate, apologise and maybe reward
How you handle the above steps can be a way of turning a complaint into a customer service triumph on their own. However, it is often important to apologise for the cause of the complaint and then to maybe even offer some sort of reward or additional recompense.
In terms of apologies, there are three kinds, choose wisely:
• Direct Apology: “I’m sorry that we didn’t send your order on time.”
• Blameless Apology: “I’m sorry that you are upset.”
• Fake Apology: “It sounds like we owe you an apology.”
Many customers interpret fake apologies as an actual apology, when, in face, you never made one – but tread carefully.
As to rewards, your business needs some agreed structure of additional recompense – money off vouchers, free gifts etc… – so that you can do this cost effectively.
It can however be worth it in the long run as it can turn a negative experience for the consumer into a very positive one that can lead to long term business.
Follow up
Once the problem has been resolved it is very important to follow up with the customer.
Not only does this give the customer the impression that you are as concerned about their problem as they are, but it also means you can turn a negative customer interaction potentially into am on going dialogue which can be good for business.
Speak Your Mind