Businesses should prioitize delivering their products or services of the highest quality. However, even best-performing companies fail to avoid customer complaints because it’s practically impossible to please everyone. Called or uncalled for, complaints need to be managed competently, gracefully and successfully to resolve the disagreements or misunderstandings and sustain a positive brand reputation.
There are a couple of tips that will help you make the process flow more smoothly.
1. Don’t take complaints personally
The first and foremost thing to keep in mind when addressing customer complaints is that your emotions should not get in the way. You ought to handle each case calmly and professionally. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old lady expressing her utter discontent for valid reasons or a teenager just fooling around and messing with you. Your approach to each one of them should be impartial and up to par. It’s also important to remember should you should NOT challenge the customers’ complaints by no means. If you think you’re right and they’re in the wrong, you wouldn’t benefit from upsetting your unhappy customers even more. Instead, you should listen to them carefully and thank them for their honest feedback.
2. Always offer support
There are many ways to offer support to your customers. Based on the circumstances, you should be able to determine what’s the best solution in the case. Perhaps, it would be reasonable to offer a refund or a discount. Tech support is also highly helpful in many situations that have to do with customer complaints. There is a possibility that some people won’t be satisfied with what you offer to remediate their complaints, which is why you need to be flexible and and able to reach a consensus.
3. Make a formal apology
After you have conversations with the customers who expressed complaints, it’s a perfect time and opportunity to apologize. Needless to say, people often make fake apologies, which can be easily sensed by those around them. You should make it clear that you’re sorry they experienced issues with your products or services which clearly upset them. Making it known to customers that you care about them and want to make them happy is an absolute game changer.
4. Don’t forget to follow up
Offering support and making apologies are both integral to positive relationship with customers. However, actions speak louder than words. It’s only fair to follow up, by reaching out to those who filed the complaints and asking them how they’ve been doing since.
Dealing with customer complaints can be an emotionally exhausting activity but the worst thing you can do is dwell on it after it’s settled. You have to move on and keep working on advancing your business and its products or services that will make more customers happy. Focusing on the present and the future is far more sustainable than overthinking customer complaints. While the latter need to be taken care of and addressed competently, you have to keep moving and improving.
