Friends, do your customers complain about your product or your services? I am sure at times they do. How do you feel when you get a customer complaint? Do you get frustrated or do you take this as an opportunity and create a long-term relationship with them instead?
Research has shown that a customer complaint if handled well is a big source of future business. A customer who has a complaint and you successfully resolve his complaint is three times more likely to return for new business to you in comparison to a customer who has never experienced any complaint against your product or service. This happens primarily because of the reason that the interaction with the customer during complaint resolution is a great opportunity to build a strong relationship with him. If customer’s complaint is handled well, then his trust in your company solidifies and his chances of returning with new business become extremely high. Therefore, handling the customer complaint effectively and up to his satisfaction is especially important.
My name is Rakesh Sharma and I support the business owners and salespeople to scale up their business and maximize their profits. Today I am going to share with you the simple process of handling a customer complaint effectively. If you really want to learn how you can make the customer complaints into a gold mine for new business then read this article till the end and make notes to apply this knowledge for your business.
Customer is always right except when he is wrong and which he is most of the time. But a complaint must be treated as an opportunity. Therefore, the organization must take the full responsibility for complaint resolution. Make sure your organization is recording all the customer complaints and resolving them in a time bound manner. Ensure to give a very good experience to a complaining customer so that his experience becomes memorable. If this happens, he will not only bring his new business to you but also, he will talk positively in front of others and recommend you to other prospects.
Given below is the time tested process for handling customer complaints effectively.
1. Listen Empathetically: A complaining customer is not generally in a good mood. He may not be able to understand the reason causing the complaint and his decisions might be clouded by the issues he is facing with your product and service. Therefore, you need to listen to him carefully and give him confidence that you are listening to him. So, empathize with the complaining customer and tell him that you understand how he feels. Listen to him thoroughly without interrupting and ensure that he has given you all the information. You must ask appropriate questions to understand the problems better so that you can resolve the complaint up to his satisfaction.
2. Take Responsibility: Be the ambassador of your company and take full responsibility of resolution of the customer complaint. Assure him that you will personally take care of it. Do not blame other departments or make other departments the scapegoat. Accept emphatically that you / company made a mistake and apologies for the inconvenience caused to him. Do not ever pass the buck, don’t ever say it’s not my job.
3. Be Responsive: Every customer thinks that he is the only one customer at your business. Treat him that way by making him feel important. Therefore, make sure that you respond a complaining customer immediately. When something is wrong people want that to be fixed immediately. He expects that problem must get resolved on the click of a button. To cool down the customer build some rapport with him. Suggest some solution to the customer as per his liking. Give him a choice. If you are not able to resolve the customer complaint immediately make sure that you give him some time commitment for the resolution. And make sure that the complaint is resolved within the committed time. This will go a long way in creating a good relationship with him.
4. Follow up Action: Calling up a customer after the complaint resolution is an especially important step. This call is made to check whether the complaint has been resolved up to his satisfaction or not. Customers feel good about it, if you ask them whether they are satisfied for the complaint resolution. Resolving a customer complaint in a favorable and positive way strengthens your respect and character in the customer’s mind. You can ask for his feedback on complaint resolution experience. This is another opportunity to build a long-term relationship with your customer. After complaint resolution write a mail or letter to him and assure him for the long-term relationship.
5. Implement a Preventive Action Plan: This is an especially important step in the complaint resolution process. Do a proper root cause analysis and find out what have you learnt from this complaint. Correct your process. Create and implement a Proactive resolution plan. This will help you prevent the future complaints. For finding the root cause you can use the 5 why tool. Certain customers expect you to share the root cause analysis with them. Do not hesitate in in sharing why did the problem happen and how do you plan to prevent it in future. If you do so it will further strengthen his confidence on your business.
Customer complaint is a great opportunity to build everlasting trust with him. If you take advantage of this opportunity you will be able to solidify your relationship with him and you can approach the customer for future business. You can also upsell or cross sell your customer immediately after you have resolved his complaint effectively up to his satisfaction. Therefore, a customer complaint if handled well can turn out to be a gold mine for future business. Therefore, resolve a customer complaint with a smile!
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Thank you for reading and Happy Selling!
