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A Guide to Handle Customer Complaints

A Guide to Handle Customer Complaints

The age-old narrative of “Customer is King” still holds true. A customer’s opinion can make or break a business. It is the best and the most effective mode of quality control for products and services. It’s absolutely crucial to listen to the customer especially the complaints.

The complaints not only help to keep the customer satisfied but also gives a perspective on the demographics of the customer base, the issues they commonly faced while using the specific product or service. It gives the business first-hand feedback from the customer.

It doesn’t matter the industry; everyone deals with customer complaints. Even the most perfectly run businesses have to deal with customer complaints on a regular basis. These instances should not be viewed in a negative light but should be dealt with like it is an opportunity to build a strong rapport with the customer.

Customer retention is something every business works towards. Every business wants to hold onto their existing customer base while adding new customers.

So, what are Customer Complaints Essentially?

A customer registers a complaint when there is a miscommunication between the service provider and the customer. A lot of companies over-promise and under-deliver, this is when the customer feels unsatisfied with the service or the product delivered to them. There are several instances of the customer coming into the play with unreasonable expectations which will obviously lead to dissatisfaction. All of these factors can result in the customer registering a complaint.

Here is a Series of Steps for Businesses to Follow:

Step 1: Always ask the right questions

Major businesses receive a ton of complaints each day. Some of them can be angry and downright offensive in their tone. But that doesn’t mean skipping these complaints, even these can provide valuable insights and present a new perspective for the business to apply to their operations.

Any complaint at its core is a culmination of the issues a customer faces, these issues can be simple or multi-fold and deep-rooted. Therefore, asking the right questions will lead the expert towards the root of the problem and push the expert one step closer towards the final solution.

Step 2: Recognize the Customer

Every customer is different, but a lot of customers come from the same demographic with similar beliefs, attitude and thought process. So, a customer service agent should be able to adapt and accommodate the specific customer. The customer may feel at ease if the agent understands and responds in a way that is familiar.

Recognizing the customer also can be used to build a database that contains important information such as the demographics, the regions where the product or service is used the most.

Step 3: Reply quickly and decisively

Nothing impresses the customer more than speed. In this day and age, everyone values time. The speed of response is directly proportional to the satisfaction of the customer. Filtering the immediate requests and requests for long-term solutions is definitely the first step. This way, the support team can resolve the short-term solutions that are not too technical quickly. Mark and Spencer Complaints specialise in providing rapid responses to the complaints they receive.

Step 4: Don’t rush to present the solution

After identification of the cause of the complaint, suggesting the correct solution is the next logical step but it shouldn’t be rushed. An agent should always check with the customer whether the solution is working optimally or not.

Step 5: Maintain a record of all the complaints

Collecting and collating all the complaints can be very beneficial as it gives access to data such as common areas of concern to the business. These data can be put together to build a database for reference while building a product or a service.

These steps are obviously not non-exhaustive but it gives a brief and clear of the steps to follow while resolving customer complaints. Complaints Directory holds a massive list of businesses and modes of registering a complaint.

At the end of the day, resolving customer complaints is more about the intent rather than the techniques used while doing it. Businesses should always try to resolve complaints quickly and effectively. This will only boost the business in the long run. 

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