If a customer is unhappy, he or she will voice their complaint. How do you respond to a complaint that you have received? Here, we share ways to handle the complaint, and provide suggestions on ways to stop the complaint from going viral.
Most customer complaint handling is reactive and reacting to customers after they have encountered an issue. We go above and beyond with a proactive complaint handling strategy.
In today’s Internet-driven world, customers have more power than ever. If customers have a positive customer experience, they will share this experience with friends, family and connections, which in turn can lead to new business. All at zero cost but what happens if you fail to provide a positive customer experience? The answer is simple. Your customers will complain. For customers that don’t complain, they just stop doing business with you.
There is a silver lining here: A customer complaint highlights a problem, whether that’s a problem with your product, employees or internal processes, and by hearing these problems directly from your customers, you can investigate and improve to prevent further complaints in the future.
Ways to handle customer complaints
The next time you receive a customer complaint, follow these tips to help transform it into a golden opportunity for your business. However, these are some of the steps we use at Invent Complaints service where we respond to your customer’s complaints 24/7 for as low as N4, 999 monthly.
- Listen and understand
Always listen to your customers. They have complained for a reason and it is important to understand why they are complaining. Research has shown that customers care more about quality than a fast response – Take time to listen and understand what their problem is.
- Apologize
Don’t be afraid to apologize for a mistake. Many customers are simply looking for an apology and acknowledgement of their complaint, yet so many businesses are hesitant to admit made. Don’t underestimate the importance of an apology:
- Find a solution
When your customer has a legitimate complaint, you need to find the root cause and solve it.
Give your customer service team the authority to handle the majority of customer complaints to avoid passing your customer onto a series of people and managers. If the issue has been or can be repeated, make the necessary changes so you do not receive another complaint.
- Follow up with the customer
Follow up with your customers to make sure they are satisfied with the solution. This can be in the form of a follow up email or survey asking for feedback on how the complaint was handled.
- Exceed Expectations
You have acknowledged the mistake, fixed the problem and followed up.
Now, it’s your chance to go one step further and exceed customer expectations, whether this is to send a hand-written thank you note or to give the customer early access to your new product features. In doing so, the next time your customer talks about your business, this will be the message they communicate most!
Customer complaint check list
Solving customer complaints is a lot like putting out fires. It’s reactive, and no matter how good your product or service is, it’s impossible to please all of your customers.
The next time you receive a complaint, use the following check list in order to respond, resolve and keep your customer happy.
- Acknowledge the complaint
- Inform the customer that you are taking action
- Record and categorize the customer complaint
- Resolve the complaint according to company policy
- Follow up with the customer to make sure they are satisfied.