8 Tips On Handling Customer Complaints

There are those days when you focus on hitting sales targets and generating the most from cross-channel communications campaigns. While you can control the message from your side what you can’t always predict is the customer's reaction.

Customers - in the form of buyers, fans, ambassadors, users and potentially vendors - power commercial profits and frontiers. Yet the art of charm, in tough and real situations, is one which requires a special form of mastery.

These days customers come in all guises and preferences. They can be segmented into those in, say, the long tail, hard-to-reach, niche, undecided, receptive, interested, amenable, converted, engaged, frequent and brand ambassadors categories, through to grouchy, uncompromising, picky, inconsistent, competitor-focused and time-consuming. There are simply those whom just will not display appropriate behaviours and buying patterns.

And, there are those customers whom make complaints and elicit negative brand feelings.

Here are eight ways to deal with difficult customers in order to maintain brand reputation and power quality marketing. Interestingly, these strategies aren't so far from the concept of conflict resolution:-

 1. Pay Attention: Listen to their complaint or gripe in full
The customer's negative talk is probably because of the way they perceive a situation. A few minutes or more of focused, quiet and non-judgmental active listening on your part will often be the first in a critical step which sets the tone for a productive conversation which puts the needs squarely on the customer.

2.     EI: Understand why they think and feel as they do
The next step on from listening is understanding. Getting to the root of the problem may be instant or require further probing. Ask the customer: what are you specifically referring to?  What are you actually frustrated about? What are you really angry about? What steps happened to you to prompt this reaction? What feeling(s) does this experience evoke? The customer may go from belligerent, high-volume or threatening to coherent, articulate and explanatory in a matter of minutes based on assertive questioning. The idea is to dig for the cause as opposed to just the effect.

3.     Analyse: Is this genuine, part of a pattern, or a one-off?
Brand reputation is a delicate consideration. It sits across all elements of marketing communications. The customer may have received the wrong order, or been poorly treated by a sales agent at some point during the customer journey. Their phone call may not have been picked up in those crucial three rings. Maybe they were left 'on hold' for an agonising amount of time, or their shopping basked request crashed at your ecommerce check-out point. But each reactive response must be judged individually on its merit. It's wise to consider: Is this really a genuine, one-off complaint? Is this customer a meddler, with repeat complaints keen to extract business goods which are not justified? Or is this a customer who is consciously out to erode the quality of the brand with their complaint? This is a judgement call which only the person or manager dealing with it can make based on experience. However, there should be some sort of accounts record of all complaints made so there is evidence and track-ability of these types of instances. Some customers are decent and honest types; others may be out to 'game' the business – beware.

4.    Evaluate: Offer a solution that meets that need
Simple – have a watertight policy in place which protects not only the company’s best interests but which also takes into account the legal rights of the customer. Have a swift returns policy or loyalty promise in place. Issue a product recall announcement if the product is indeed faulty. It may be a policy which can be gauged by levels of complaint and displeasure, for instance: free 24 hour window for returns; 15% off next purchase for a wrong product sent; £40 in partner gift vouchers for particular unforeseen issues; 25% off the new special edition to premium-level and 'red alert complaint' reviewer lists ahead of market launch. If needs be go back internally and reconstruct whatever was the root problem.

5.     Brand Act: Be professional at all times
Listen, talk intelligently, explain, offer apologies and treat each customer as a professional who has a valid issue. It's always good to respect their time and attention. At all costs it's important not to compromise the brand. Quality customer service and brand reputation are two important elements that customers will remember and can influence through their own channels.

6.     Safety: Remember your human rights too
Remember your human rights. At the end of the day if a company representative feels uncomfortable, out of your depth, or threatened by a customer then it’s time to take a different kind of action: self-preservation. Either move the telephone call onto specialist department, get a manager involved, or extract yourself from the situation in the nicest possible way. There is customer compassion; and there is knowing your needs in any given situation.

7.     Result: Follow-up contact
Every customer, good or bad, can be won over – it’s just a matter of appropriate time, strategies and effort. If they are the type whom will respond to common sense and the olive branch then follow-up emails, well-timed phone calls and targeted marketing communications will turn the tide against a difficult customer into a profitable one.

8.     Tailor: Don’t expect that this works every time
Every difficult customer is different. It’s worth assessing what type, category and flavour they each are. Some customers will be easy to find a solution for, whilst others will require more energy and more complex strategies for successful engagement. Keep trying. And tailor where necessary.

It's likely that most customer complaints can be managed swiftly and successfully without recourse to serious escalation. Ideally incidences will be nipped in the bud. Businesses with well trained staff and good data-rich marketing systems which cut across social and mobile can even be forewarned of any customer issues or oversights that may arise due to robust tracking and analytical dashboards. 

source:.peoriamagazines.com