Complaint Handling: 14 Effective Business Recommendations

Given the wealth of information available online, the need to learn to build relationships for business is becoming ever more important. One area to spend time and energy on is complaint handling.

complaint handling
Complaint handling Tips.

Why? Because today’s consumers are more informed than you can imagine. This has resulted in a drastic shift in consumer power and has altered the selling process by placing a greater emphasis on both customer relationships and customer experience. Complaint handling plays a big part in these areas.

Most businesses do not have a clear understanding of what relationship building is and how to successfully put it into practice. Let’s debunk one misconception right from the start: Relationship building isn’t the opposite of traditional marketing, and it doesn’t exclude older channels (like email marketing and content marketing) in favor of solely using social media.

To clarify this important practice, today we’ll look at the most important recommendations in relationship-building campaigns. We’ll even give you the inside scoop from notable entrepreneurs on how relationships helped build the audiences that built their businesses.

Let’s get started.

What is Business Relationship Building?

With a focus on loyalty, retention, and long-term relationships, the aptly named practice of “relationship marketing” is designed around developing strong connections with customers by directly providing them with information that is tailored to their needs, wants, and interests.

As opposed to transactional marketing’s focus on direct sales, relationship marketing emphasizes increased word-of-mouth activity, repeat business, and a willingness on the customer’s part to provide information to the organization. And unlike “interruption” marketing, this process is started willingly via an opt-in by the customer.

Complaint handling … the value add

But is this focus on creating a relationship with customers worthwhile? As we previously discussed, the shocking truth of brand loyalty is that most customers do not want to be engaged with a business or brand; their priority is shared values.

The secret here is that the relationship marketing process has nothing to do with engagement and everything to do with being practically useful for both your business and customers.

According to a management study by Robin Buchanan and Crawford Gillies, the increased profitability associated with relationship building is the result of several factors:

Less “dating around.”

Satisfied, long-term customers in your marketing funnel are statistically less likely to switch. As a bonus, they tend to be less price-sensitive; experts say that customers who feel taken care of are less concerned about what they are paying.

building effective business relationships
Building effective business relationships.

Avoid the cost of acquisition

The famous Bain & Company analysis that it is 6 to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one is something that keeps marketers up at night, but businesses with high rates of customer satisfaction needn’t worry about high churn rates.

It’s the foundation of the word-of-mouth

Strong relationships are essential to a high net promoter score, or, in other words, the chance that a customer will happily refer your business to a friend.

Your advocates are your rock

Regular customers tend to buy more often, and they are less expensive to maintain because of their familiarity with your business and the processes behind it.

Expansion becomes easier

Longstanding customers are much more likely to purchase your ancillary products and embrace your new ventures (think of those folks you know who buy each new Apple gadget).

Importance of business relationships … build customer trust

Most businesses today consider themselves to be trustworthy, and by yesterday’s standards, they are. They post their prices and rates honestly, they try their best to maintain the quality and reliability of their service, they protect the security of their customer’s funds, and they do what they promise.

But even though they don’t lie or steal, the fact is that the vast majority of financial services companies still generate substantial profits by fooling customers or capitalizing on their mistakes, or by taking advantage of them when they simply aren’t paying attention.

That approach in today’s environment is a direct route to customer attrition. Retention and growth now entail acting in customers’ best interest.

Acting in the customer’s interest requires companies to balance the benefit of an immediate profit against the cost of earning the respect and confidence of a customer—an asset that is, in the long term, far more valuable. Financial services companies must become more trustable because as the rising power of customers exposes untrustable behavior the question of a company’s trustability will go to the heart of its value proposition.

Trustability will become an essential element of any bank’s customer service in the future in much the same way that having a website has become an essential element of customer service today.

Complaint handling examples … for survival

To survive in this new, hyper-transparent world in which extreme trust is a prerequisite for business success, a  firm must pursue these basic courses of action:

 

Building effective business relationships … good intentions

Having empathy for customers, and treating each one the way you would want to be treated if you were that customer, is the single most important element of trustability. To be trustable, you have to adopt a customer-centric philosophy, and then re-engineer your value proposition and customer experience from the standpoint of the customer. This will have consequences for your operating policies, of course, but the eventual implications for your firm’s culture will be even more profound. If your call center reps, tellers, and loan officers don’t believe you are a trustable company, then your customers won’t either.

 

Rethinking control

In the transparent future, you won’t be able to retain control over communications about your brand. The only thing you will control is how well your business processes protect your customers’ interests. To make your command-and-control, hierarchical firm more trustable, you will have to give more authority to individual employees, empowering them to “sense and respond” in real-time to customer issues. And don’t be too afraid to allow your workers to show your company’s human side, including its vulnerability. A little vulnerability will encourage customers to be empathetic to you, and empathy generates trust.

 

Ask good questions

Many people think good listening means always letting someone finish every thought and nodding along. Instead, active listening requires that you ask questions WHILE you are listening. Sometimes this means interrupting – but this isn’t something to be afraid of. Often the interruptions will lead to tangents that create more intersections for both of the people in a conversation.

 

Build community

how to build strong business relationships
How to build strong business relationships.

One of the secrets behind the e-social revolution is that people have an irresistible urge to share with others. They make their opinions known, they contribute ideas, they collaborate on things such as Wikipedia and open-source software, and many companies even find that customers provide the best kind of customer service for other customers. If you want to become more trustable, you have to tap this sharing instinct, first by sharing your honest counsel with customers.

Talk to them not just regarding how they can get more value from their financial products, but how they can better manage their resources, and how they can save and spend responsibly. Facilitate customers collaborating with other customers, through online community platforms, social sharing sites, product reviews, and problem-solving customer forums.

 

Show competence

To be trustable not only must your intention be to act in the customer’s best interest, but you also have to have the competence to act on that intention. On a basic level, this means paying close attention to the quality of your product and service. But just as important, you should upgrade your data, analytics, and systems. Quantifying the financial benefits of long-term customer trust and confidence requires good analytics.

Customer lifetime values are not easy to compute, but in the financial services industry, more than in most other categories, statistical data is available, and there is no shortage of analytical tools to make these calculations. If you want your company to become more trustable, you’ll have to begin paying attention to the data and pushing the envelope on analysis.

 

Stimulate stories

There are questions that lead to answers, and then there are questions that lead to stories. Here’s one way you might start a story-seeking question, “What inspired you to …” When people share stories, they go beyond feeling like they are being interrogated. They open up, and they connect. The more stories you can hear, the more connection you’ll feel with everyone you speak to.

 

Make observations and draw assumptions

Consider starting questions with this phrase: “I noticed that you …” What happens when you are forced to think about this is that you start to consider what you know about someone before you meet them based on where you are, what they look like or what you know about them already.

One of the best conversations I had at an event recently was because I noticed that someone was using two different phones at the same time. Asking why led to an amazing conversation about time optimization and technology.

The bottom line

For customers who do want a relationship with your brand, their concerns are primarily about how useful you prove yourself to be (outside of your product).

In a world of extreme trust, you always have to take a step back from whatever business policy you’re considering, whatever new idea you’re thinking about, and ask yourself: “If this became public, would it be an embarrassment to us? Would we be proud of it? Would any of our customers hold it against us?”

Because in the highly interactive, extremely transparent future everything you do, every policy you have, will become public. Hidden fees won’t remain hidden, and bad intentions will be quickly exposed. If you want your financial services company to be genuinely trustable, then you have to have clean hands, not just a good alibi.

customer_service_design

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

 

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

 

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing, and customer service agent. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. 

  

More reading on customer engagement from our library:

Whole Foods Customer Engagement Using Social Media

Is Employee Engagement the Backbone of the Publix Culture?

13 Employee Engagement Lessons From Best Employee Brands

A positive Attitude Is Everything for Customer Engagement

 

Like this short blog? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, and stories per week.

Complaint Management: Tips for Small Business Success

The complaint management process is an incredibly important part of the overall service experience you deliver. Here are some tips that can be helpful for small businesses.

complaint management
Pay strict attention to complaints.

Oftentimes, a negative experience that a customer has with your business can be salvaged and turned into an opportunity to win them over for life.

But being able to handle negative feedback in a positive way takes plenty of practice. Your business can get a head start by following established advice on interacting with customers in these less-than-ideal situations.

Below we’ll dive into some strategies on how you can do this, but first, we need to look at why handling these complaints incorrectly could be hurting your bottom line.

 

Why Customer Complaints Matter

Poorly handled customer complaints are one of the quickest ways you can destroy an otherwise stellar service reputation.

Complaint Management Tips
Complaint management tips.

Consider the following statistics from the Jim Moran Institute and Lee Resources:

  • Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor and they will do business with you again 70% of the time

  • Up to 95% of customers will give you a second chance if you handle their complaints successfully and in a timely manner.

So while you won’t be able to satisfy every unhappy person who contacts you, the returns that your business may see from turning an initially bad customer service experience into a “win” are immense.

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

 

Below, we’ll look at many essential tips that will allow you to do just that:

 

Complaint management … give credence to customers

Treat every customer as if they have 10,000 Twitter followers.”
—Myers Barnes

Barnes’ quote drives home the overarching point that each customer should be treated as if they have a large following.

It’s a given that every once in a while you’re going to run across those “barnacle” customers who will never be satisfied enough to not complain. It’s good business sense to give them very little of your time, but you should still view every potential customer interaction as if the customer has a broad audience at their disposal. This will safeguard your business from many potentially disastrous mishaps.

 

Complaint management process … remember that complaints teach us something

In an article on Inc.com, Evernote CEO Phil Libin spoke about why he loves his angriest customers.

In particular, Libin addressed the need for balance between internal innovation and customer feedback, saying:

Customer feedback is great for telling you what you did wrong. It’s terrible at telling you what you should do next.

His point mirrors the one we made in our article on why Steve Jobs never listened to customers. Innovation needs to rely on your team, but customers shouldn’t be discounted in pointing your team in the right direction.

 

Record and organize complaints

No matter what business you run, you’ll almost always come across a customer that wants things for free or that thinks every single one of your price points is too expensive. You should take this sort of feedback with a grain of salt in most instances.

However, if multiple customers have told you that they simply cannot figure out how to use Key Feature X, you may have a serious communication problem on your hands.\u2028

In an earlier post, we showed you how to set up a simple, browsable, and easy-to-use feedback system with a few key tools; you don’t have to follow our workflow verbatim, but definitely make sure relevant complaints are being tracked!

 

handling customer complaints examples
Handling customer complaints examples.

Define each complainer 

A recent academic publication on customer complaints presents a strong case for categorizing complainers through a selection of archetypes that most customers fall into when voicing their concerns.\u2028

The Meek Customer: Generally averse to complaining, but warrants a mention because you may need to inquire deeper to get them to reveal exactly what is wrong.

The Aggressive Customer: Outspoken and not shy about letting you know what’s on their mind. Your best bet is to avoid being aggressive back and instead react with “What else may I help you with?” Show that you’re ready and willing to hear them out.

The High Roller: Your “enterprise” customer; they likely pay you well and demand premium support for it. While no customers are fond of excuses, this customer hates hearing them.

The Chronic Complainer: This customer will contact you a lot, but that doesn’t mean that their issues should be dismissed. Patience is required here, but once satisfied this customer will have no qualms about singing your praises to others.

The Barnacle: Although the publication identifies this type as the “rip-off” customer, I find the barnacle label to be more accurate. This customer is never happy and isn’t really looking for a satisfactory response; they are just trying to get something they don’t deserve. Everything is not good enough unless they’re getting a handout, and your best bet is to maintain your composure and respond as objectively as possible.

As you likely noticed, these are the extremes that you’ll encounter. The average customer complaint will be far more moderate, but it’s important to recognize these potential personas when putting your tried-and-true customer service skills into practice.

 

Avoid being passive-aggressive

Hearing the phrase, “We’re sorry that you are having this problem,” is pretty infuriating from the customer’s viewpoint.

The thing is, many small business owners use this sort of language by accident. They’re trying to apologize to a customer, but coming off as demeaning or dismissive.

Just say you’re sorry. Even if the customer is being unreasonable, apologize outright and ask how you might help resolve the issue. And if you’ve come across a “barnacle,” then move on.

 

Transfer them but explain why

Please hold while we transfer you. Your call is very important to us.

Ugh. While you’ll experience less of this problem when handling support via email, it’s still important to get people to the right employee quickly.

Never miss an opportunity to briefly explain to a customer why this transfer will be to their benefit. It’s hard to get any customer happy or excited about being transferred, but consider the two choices you have:

  • You are getting transferred.“Well, this stinks!”

  • You will be transferred to our ____ specialist who can better answer your question.“Well … okay, then!”

Without this brief but relevant insertion, customers won’t know that you are actually trying to do the right thing.

 

Handling customer complaints … investigate with supportive questioning  

handling customer complaints
Handling customer complaints.

There is a fine line between simply following up after handling a complaint and inadvertently inviting customers to complain even more.

Let’s look at the following two responses:

  • Is there anything else wrong?”
  • “How else can I help you today?”

Asking a customer who just complained a leading, negative question such as #1 will lead to nothing good. Conversely, inquiring how you may be able to further assist a customer lets them know that you are willing to stick it out if they have any other issues to address.

 

Time is critical

There have been some pretty strong cases for spending more time with your customers, but you saw the data above … complaints are a slightly different beast than greatly benefits from being resolved quickly.

A customer leaving a feature request won’t sweat the fact that it took you a day to get back to them. However, unhappy customers want resolution yesterday, so you need to make responding to them a priority.

In almost every other instance I would encourage you to slow down your service, but in this case, you need to make moves to right the wrong as soon as possible.

 

Verify the resolution

Have you ever tried to contact customer service through an online form, and after you hit submit there wasn’t a single follow-up notification on whether or not action had taken place?

This is frustrating because you don’t have a clue where your issue—and any hope of resolving it—stands.

The same thinking applies to resolving customer conflicts via email or phone. You want to be absolutely sure that the customer is clear on the resolution that occurred and that it met their needs. So if you’re not ending your responses with an inviting question to do more, then start now.

 

Drop all formalities

Customers want to be treated with respect, but if you stop treating customers like regular people and start talking like a corporate stiff then they won’t interpret the interaction as genuine.

Research suggests that personalization is powerful when interacting with anyone, but especially with your customers.

Remember that you’re not speaking to the Queen of England, so refer to your “chat” with a customer rather than your “correspondence” with them, and speak as if you were talking with an acquaintance. A little familiarity can go a long way toward getting customers on your side.

 

Resolving customer complaints … involve them 

You already know that you don’t have to “buy” an amazing customer experience, so throwing freebies at customers over issues that could have been resolved in other ways is a surefire way to lose your shirt.

Instead, if a complaint is genuine and the mistake is on your end, involve customers in resolution decision-making through phrases such as, “What do you think would be fair?”

Yes, the barnacle customer will try to use this opportunity to take more than they deserve, but this language brings out a reasonable side in most people, and you’ll likely get asked for much less than you might have offered if you hadn’t solicited their input.

 

Know when to stop

If a customer wants to cancel their account, do it for them right away. Better yet, let them cancel without having to call your company at all. It should be just as easy to cancel as it was to sign up.

Winning customers back with exceptional service is an important aspect of your business that you should focus on (and the thesis for this whole article!), but when customers already have one foot out the door let the parting be as frictionless as possible.

Customers aren’t necessarily done with you for good just because they cancel their account once, so don’t hassle them as they exit. Remind them what they’ll be missing by simply being sincerely helpful.

 

Get to where you can take action

People love to complain on Twitter, but it’s hard to successfully resolve a complaint within that channel.

Instead, refer people to an email address they can contact with their issue and assure them that you are ready, willing, and able to get this problem resolved the right way.

Trying to achieve anything more in limited spaces like social media just results in a public back-and-forth that rarely goes anywhere productive. The key to improving your service is to guide people into a channel where you can truly address their problems.

Don’t take it personally

You and I both have bad days from time to time, and your customers do, too, so don’t hold it against them.

Even with the absolute worst barnacle customers, you need to practice pushing their mistreatment aside and recognize that you can’t control how miserable people act—but you can control how you react.

Stay positive, knowing that the next amazing customer is likely right around the corner.

The bottom line

To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views, or social media shares. We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.

 

We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.

 

There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement on brand marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. It seems we all are looking to take our success to a new level. This is an excellent time to make a statement with their brand marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.

 

customer_experience_design

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

 

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. 

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

 

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. 

  

More reading on customer engagement from our library:

Should a Business Send Customers to Competitors?
An Actionable Approach to Target Market Segmentation
Complaints Are Sources of Remarkable Customer Retention Strategies
 

Customer Complaints: How to Improve your Complaint Handling?

Dealing with difficult customers can be challenging, to say the least. But if you handle the situation well, you may even be able to improve your dealing with customer complaints. That is an awesome end game and should create further opportunities for your business.

customer complaints
Handling customer complaints.

Make sure that you listen actively to his problems or complaints, and resist the urge to interrupt or solve the problem right away. Be empathic and understanding, and make sure that your body language communicates this.

dealing with unhappy customers
Dealing with unhappy customers.

If you’re not sure how to fix the situation, then ask your client what will make him happy. If it’s in your power, then get it done as soon as possible. Follow up with your customer to make sure he was happy with how the situation was resolved.
Many of us have to deal with angry or unhappy clients as part of our roles, and it’s never easy. But if we know what to say and, more importantly, how to say it, we may be able to save the situation. In fact, we can even end up with a better relationship with our client than we had before.
In this article, we’ll explore how to deal with angry or difficult customers. We’ll highlight specific tips and techniques that you can use to smooth things over so that you can leave them feeling satisfied.
Before our tips on dealing with unhappy customers, let me tell you a story I experienced first hand.
A while back I was sitting on the runway in Orlando as my homeward-bound Jet Blue flight was about to taxi toward takeoff. Like just about every other flight that hadn’t already been canceled that day on the Eastern seaboard, ours was a couple of hours late departing.  The lead flight attendant gets on the P.A. system and says something very close to:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we know we’re late taking off, and even though it’s the weather and not something we caused, we’re going to comp everybody’s movies for this flight. We know you’ve all had a long day and we want it to end with something nice and relaxing. And for those of you who were supposed to be on the Continental flight and ended up here, we don’t ever want you to go back.”
The mood on the flight — which could have been a rather dreary late evening affair — took an immediate upswing.  People joked and smiled and made eye contact.  They were noticeably brighter and calmer as the flight progressed.  And I’m writing about the experience today, and several thousand business travelers are reading about it.
What enabled this relatively small act of kindness and allowed it to become a major brand statement?  Midflight, I went to the back of the plane and asked.  I wanted to know the policy that allowed a flight attendant to make such a call.
“We’re allowed to make almost any decision,” the flight attendant explained, “as long as we can justify it by one of the airline’s five core values: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun or Passion.  If we can tie doing something back to one of these principles, the decision is going to be supported by the company.”
 
What JetBlue was saying to its employees … “If you act in support of the values that matter to our business, we want you to take risks to care for our customers.”
This is a very simple concept, eh? But how many of us put such a thing into practice with our people.  Sit down today with your employees and do what Jet Blue did.
So let’s examine some useful tips on dealing with unhappy customers:

adjust your mindset
Adjust your mindset.

Customer complaints … adjust your mindset

Once you’re aware that your client is unhappy, then your priority is to put yourself into a customer service mindset.
This means that you set aside any feelings you might have that the situation isn’t your fault, or that your client has made a mistake, or that he or she is giving you unfair criticism.

Here is a useful reference: SPEAKING THE UNSPOKEN: HOW THE WORDLESS ART OF BODY LANGUAGE CAN MAKE YOU A MASTER OF COMMUNICATION

All that matters is that you realize that your customer or client is upset and that it’s up to you to solve the problem. Adjust your mindset so that you’re giving 100 percent of your focus to your client, and to the current situation.

Listen Actively

The most important step in the whole of this process is listening actively to what your client or customer is saying – he wants to be heard, and to air his grievances.
Start the dialogue with a neutral statement, such as, “Let’s go over what happened,” or “Please tell me why you’re upset.” This subtly creates a partnership between you and your client and lets him know that you’re ready to listen.
Resist the temptation to try to solve the situation right away, or to jump to conclusions about what happened. Instead, let your client tell you his story. As he’s talking, don’t plan out what you’re going to say when he’s done – this isn’t active listening!
Also, don’t allow anything to interrupt this conversation. Give your client all of your attention.

Resolving customer complaints … repeat what you heard

Once he’s had time to explain why he’s upset, repeat his concerns, so you’re sure that you’re addressing the right issue. If you need to, ask questions to make sure that you’ve identified the problem correctly.
Use calm, objective wording. For example, “As I understand it, you are, quite rightly, upset because we didn’t deliver the samples that we promised you last week.”
Repeating the problem shows the customer you were listening, which can help lower his anger and stress levels. More than this, it helps you agree on the problem that needs to be solved.

Show legitimate empathy and apologize

angry customer scenarios
Angry customer scenarios.

Once you’re sure that you understand your client’s concerns, be empathic . Show her you understand why she’s upset.
And, make sure that your body language  also communicates this understanding and empathy.
For example, you could say, “I understand why you’re upset. I would be too. I’m very sorry that we didn’t get the samples to you on time, especially since it’s caused these problems.”

Dealing with unhappy customers … offer a solution

Now you need to present her with a solution. There are two ways to do this.
If you feel that you know what will make your client happy, tell her how you’d like to correct the situation.
You could say, “I know you need these samples by tomorrow to show to your customers. I will call our other clients to see if they have extras that they can spare, and, if they do, I’ll drop them off at your offices no later than 5:00 pm this evening.”
If you’re not sure you know what your client wants from you, or if they resist your proposed solution, then give her the power to resolve things. Ask her to identify what will make her happy.
For instance, you could say, “If my solution doesn’t work for you, I’d love to hear what will make you happy. If it’s in my power, I’ll get it done, and if it’s not possible, we can work on another solution together.”

Rapid action and follow-up

Once you’ve both agreed on a solution, you need to take action immediately. Explain every step that you’re going to take to fix the problem to your client
If she has contacted you by phone, make sure that she has your name and contact details. This gives her a feeling of control because she can get hold of you again if she needs to.
Once the situation has been resolved, follow up with your client over the next few days to make sure that she’s happy with the resolution. Whenever you can, go above and beyond her expectations. For instance, you could send her a gift certificate, give her a great discount on her next purchase, or send her a hand-written apology.

Use the feedback

Your last step is to reduce the risk of the situation happening again.
If you haven’t already done so, identify how the problem started in the first place. Was there a bottleneck that slowed shipment? Did a sales rep forget to confirm an order?
Find the root of the problem and make sure it’s fixed immediately, then consider using Kaizen to continue improving your work practices. Also, ensure that you’re managing complaints and feedback effectively, so that you can improve that way that you do things.

Additional tips

  • It’s important to handle difficult customers professionally. Learning how to stay calm and how to stay cool under pressure can help you get through challenging situations with grace and professionalism.
  • If your client is especially angry, then talk slowly and calmly, and use a low tone of voice. This will subtly help lower the tension, and ensure that you don’t escalate the situation by visibly getting stressed or upset yourself.
  • If your client has sent you a difficult email or they’re angry with you over the phone, then offer to meet with him or her in person if you can to address the problem. This will not only diffuse anger (since it’s harder for most people to get truly angry face to face) but it also shows that you genuinely want to address and fix the situation.
  • If you feel that your client is unreasonable, you might start to get upset, especially if he or she is criticizing you, or your organization, unfairly. So learn anger management skills so that you can stay calm in these situations.
  • Occasionally a client or customer may become verbally abusive towards you or your team. Know in advance what you’ll tolerate, and what you won’t. If things escalate, you may need to be assertive and stand up for yourself, or even walk away from the situation to give the client time to cool down.
  • People in your team might be the ones on the “front line” when it comes to dealing with difficult customers. Make sure that they know how to engage correctly in emotional labor. (This means that they should know how to manage their emotions when dealing with difficult people.)
  • Work on improving your conflict resolution skills. These skills can help you if you need to negotiate with your clients.

The Bottom Line

 

It shouldn’t take more than one unpleasant experience for a business owner to realize that proactive measures are more effective when it comes to customer service than having to respond to an unhappy customer. The tips mentioned here represent just a portion of the steps a business owner can take to set things right with a customer who’s disappointed, angry, or upset.
Although the situation might be slightly different when dealing with a customer who’s downright nasty, the principles applied are still the same: an unhappy customer will wreak havoc on a business’s reputation unless the business owner rectifies the situation.
There will be times when nothing can be done to satisfy an unhappy customer. At that point, the customer service employee must simply defer that customer to a manager or supervisor. But employees who handle customer service complaints quickly, efficiently and professionally will minimize those issues and will give employees a sense of ownership in their jobs and the company.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences?  Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
                 
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas to make your customer experiences better.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
 
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
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Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
12 Ways Doctors Can Create Remarkable Patient Experiences
Simplify Customers Lives for Remarkable Experiences
Disney World Customer Experience Design … a Difference Maker
My Best Examples of Customer Experience Stories
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.