Wed 24 Sep 2008
Coping with Customer Complaints
Posted by Megan Dorn under Small Business
Disgruntled customers are a fact of business. You can’t make everyone happy all of the time. Whether the problem is completely your fault or some unpredictable force of nature, customers will complain.
How you respond to such complaints has a huge impact on your business—from customer satisfaction and repeat business to profits and growth.
When it comes to customer complaints, there are two areas that need to be addressed. The first, how you remedy the problem, is not usually an issue for most businesses. Customer service representatives are polite, offer an apology and do what they can to make it right. Where many businesses falter, however, is in ensuring that similar problems don’t occur in the future.
Because customer service representatives are usually the ones who deal directly with customers, there is often a disconnect between the people with the problems and the people who have the authority to make the changes needed to address the problem on a larger scale. For example, let’s say that a customer buys a hammer from a local hardware store. The first time the customer uses it, the handle snaps. When the customer returns the broken hammer, the customer service representative apologizes for the inconvenience and refunds the money. Everyone walks away content with the manner in which the problem was remedied, but that’s as far as it goes. If management brushes the issue off as a minor annoyance or if the customer service representative fails to inform management of the issue altogether, then the problem could easily occur again. Not good!
“Customers often want to know—within a reasonable time—not only that their problem has been resolved, but how the failure occurred and what the company is doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
Instead of only going halfway, the customer service representative should have assured the customer that the company would look further into the problem and then informed management. Management should then take the initiative to actually look into it. The broken handle on the hammer could just be an isolated incident, but it could also be the result of a defective product. Falling short when it comes to dealing with customer complaints can be seen as negligence, and customers don’t appreciate it. So go the extra mile and deal with complaints the right way.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:12 am
“Falling short when it comes to dealing with customer complaints can be seen as negligence, and customers don’t appreciate it.”
This is definitely a great point and something companies need to be aware of. I recently came across statistics that indicated customers will return to a business 54-70% of the time if their problem is resolved by the company, but 95% will return if their problem is handled quickly and positively.
I think when customers have problems, they may tend to anticipate a negative experience. Going the extra step means a lot to customers and will keep them coming back!