Customer Complaints

Listen To The Complaint

In this scenario, listening to angry customer complaints is critical if you want to retain his business by turning the situation around. Your goal is to make this customer happy, because you know that a disgruntled customer will tell up to 16 other business associates about the lousy service he received at the hands of your company and why he can’t recommend you.

So listening becomes a key skill. At this point your customer is upset and wants someone to listen and acknowledge his complaint. your delivery problems has caused grief for the customer. Perhaps he was expecting the arrival of your product as promised, so that he could meet a deadline of his own. Now that the order has gone South, you’ve got to devote all your skills to listening without judgment, curbing your tongue and let the customer wind down. Your customer has every right to be unhappy. Put yourself in your customer’s shows. How would you feel? You’d be upset too. So listen and wait. Don’t interrupt. Interrupting is a sign of disrespect. When the opportunity arises, paraphrase what you’ve heard to make sure that you fully understand your customer’s complaint. Apologize for the grief you’ve caused, because, by this time, it’s you the customer is angry with. It’s you the customer suspects is the biggest incompetent he’s ever had to deal with. And it’s you who have to fix the problem. Pronto.

Develop a Solution

You can do one of two things. One, you can propose a solution whereby you will investigate and personally get back to your customer at a specified hour with information about what’s being done to correct the situation. Or, two, you can listen to a solution that the customer proposes, and compare it to yours. You may hear a way to save the say by combining both solutions. Keep in mind that you’re now in negotiations with your customer, and that future orders depend upon his satisfaction.

If your customer doesn’t have a workable solution, offer a 15% to 20% discount for your products as an appeasement.

Take Action Against Customer Complaints

Once you have agreed on a course of action, and you’ve promised to become personally involved, get going. Get a cell number where you can reach your customer, and schedule a time when you’ll call back. You’d better darn well call back at that appointed hour with a working solution or the customer will be gone forever, and you’ll be facing your customer’s complaint broadcast through your business community.

Get together with your staff. No one goes home till the problem is solved. Work together. Have all the team members concentrate on their particular department to examine all paper work, until they find the glitch that caused this. Get your IT team involved. Perhaps there is a heretofore unknown glitch in your ordering system. Find it.

Call back At The Appointed Hour

With luck and hard work, you’ll have discovered hat went wrong and arranged a solution to get your product into the hands of your customer immediately. Even if you have to ship an entirely new order at your expense, do so. You can always recall the original order and out it back in inventory unless it’s a custom order. If that’s the case, send the customer what you can while the original order is in transit, but above all else have a solution to your customer’s complaint when one you call back.

Just by calling back your customer may be amazed. After all, he probably only half expected that you would keep your word. Boom! You’ve hit the homer and opened the door. Now you have a customer who, while still somewhat upset, is willing to listen to what went wrong. Explain calmly. Take full responsibility. If it was a glitch in your ordering software, say so and that you are working to correct. Explain the steps you are taking to rectify the situation, that your shipping department is readying another partial order to ship immediately to help the customer meet his deadline. Tell him that you are recalling his original order from wherever it landed and give him a working ETA.

After this is done, sit back and hold your breath.

Your customer while have two reactions. Yes he’s accepted your proposal, or no, he’s decided to cancel the order. But even if he cancels, you still haven’t lost all. Your customer will realize that you did all you could to correct a customer complaint. He could be inclined to try you again. But even if he doesn’t, you may have minimized the amount of damage to your reputation by giving it your best effort. Your honesty and effort will be appreciated.