In the customer service industry, we cannot avoid complaints. We must take care of the customer by listening to the complaint, and resolving it, to ensure a happy customer. Fewer than half of unhappy customers will bring a complaint to your attention. Those who never say anything will tell an average of 11 other people about their bad experience. It is important that we recognize complaints as opportunities, so we can sway these averages, one resolved complaint at a time.
Customers want to know someone is listening and they are understood, and they are hoping you are willing to take care of the problem to their satisfaction. No matter what the situation is, when a customer brings a complaint to your attention—even if they do it in a less-than-desirable way—be thankful.
Here are five strategies that will help you handle a customer complaint in a smooth and professional manner:. A quick follow-up phone call a few days later to make sure everything is OK is icing on the cake.
Even a small gesture of apology can turn this interaction from disaster to legendary. A simple gesture like this could result in a future referral or a positive word-of-mouth marketing recommendation. When you resolve customer complaints successfully, you will better understand their needs, retain them as loyal customers, and enhance your business.
Amanda Herder is an account manager for Signature Worldwide, a Dublin, OH-based company offering sales and customer service training, marketing, and mystery shopping services for a variety of service-based industries.
For more information, call Online Articles. Here are five strategies that will help you handle a customer complaint in a smooth and professional manner: Stay calm. As with acknowledgment, apologizing does not mean that you agree with the customer, nor are you taking the blame. It demonstrates that you understand where they are coming from and that you are ready to resolve the problem for them.
Now is the time that you can calmly start asking questions for clarification. Start a genuine conversation with your customer. However, it is imperative that you do not ask questions that your customer has already answered. The faster you find a reasonable solution that everyone can agree on, the happier your customer will be and you get to breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps offering a small gift card or a discount on future purchases will be enough to assuage the situation.
You might also consider replacing the item for free or upgrading their future purchase or membership. When trying to find a solution, give your employees enough freedom to make judgment calls independently.
Complaints often include hidden opportunities for improving your product or service. Documenting them can help you identify flaws, issues, and trends. It could be a product glitch that you need to immediately address.
Whatever the case, make sure to record all customer complaints for future use. With the complaints documented, you can bring them up in monthly and annual meetings to seek advice on how to tackle the issue. Contacting your angry customer after finding a solution for them might be the last thing you want to do, but after all that hard work, following up with your customer is the icing on the cake for them.
This is a nice way to show that you really intend to help out and solve the experience problem that led to the complaint. You can attach a face to conversations easily enough with video conferencing apps like Zoom or Skype.
Customer complaints are usually rooted in legitimate problems. Make sure you actually follow through with your promise, though. Apps like Notifications make it a breeze to notify customers about stock level changes, individual purchases, and more. They call or email you and you never respond. Sometimes all it takes is one ignored message or email and you suddenly have an angry customer. We are all human after all. Apologize, then handle the issue right then and there.
Try to avoid putting the problem off any longer. Customer service issues. If you carry a product or offer a service, both you and your employees are expected to be the experts.
Make sure your employees are well-acquainted with your products and services, as well as trained in customer service. If the above does happen to you, you can assure your customer that customer service reps are receiving training.
Plus, offer to send additional information about the product. And be sure to address these kinds of issues with the employee as well. Or, due to misunderstanding how to use the product, they simply have a lack of knowledge. This is a guest post for Skills You Need. Want to contribute? Find out how. Customer complaints are inevitable, no matter how streamlined your business.
They must always be acknowledged and dealt with effectively. Many business owners see complaint management as a time-consuming and frustrating process. However, by developing an efficient system, complaints can be resolved quickly and easily.
It can be difficult to remain impassive in the face of criticism, but an emotional response will only serve to irritate the customer further. Give the customer your full attention and listen to the whole problem before responding. Put yourself in their shoes - if you had a problem, you would want someone to listen to you.
Appearing disinterested, or attempting to argue back, will only exacerbate the situation. You might deal with complaints on a regular basis, and may well have handled a similar situation before. However, for the customer, their complaint is unique to them. Treat them as an important individual by listening to their problem in full. In the face of a complaint, it's easy to be defensive - particularly if you don't believe you're at fault.
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