In today’s fiercely competitive world, Customer Service is key to growth and profits. Knowing how to retain customers, build a presence and market share, and improve worker performance is crucial. Almost nothing strikes more fear in an employee’s heart than a customer with a complaint. Most employees would rather have a root canal than deal with customers who aren’t pleased with a product or service they purchased from your company.

Your first thought might be, “Where can I hide?”

Face it: you can’t. What you can—and should do—is address the situation and, in the process, retain those customers and the money they spend with you. The first step is realizing that any complaint from a customer—or a coworker, for that matter—is an opportunity to learn and to grow. Many customers simply take their business elsewhere. Those who come to you with a complaint are giving you an opportunity to solve their problems and to identify what changes in your company’s products or services might need to be made.

What are the barriers that prevent you from satisfying customers? Most barriers involve policy procedures and outdated policies that prevent employees from offering practical solutions and doing so in a timely manner.

Identify those barriers and then eliminate them. Develop new processes that answer the internal issues and eliminate the problem permanently. Question about the staff having freedom to make decisions. Are you empowered to make decisions on the spot, or are you required to send the problem up the ladder to a manager? If that’s the case, you’re in trouble. Many managers don’t empower employees to make decisions, because they don’t trust them—and they don’t trust their customers. They think customers will take advantage of employees and that employees will give away the store.

When a customer comes to you with a complaint, you have cost them money by wasting their time. Make it right; pay them for their inconvenience. When you compensate them with credit for a free product or service, they’ll come back to you to spend it. By compensating them, you’ve bought yourself a second chance. Most customers don’t complain; they just stop doing business with you.

“For every $1 spent in courtesy adjustments, we receive $5 in business.” A study for the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs found that 95% of customers who register complaints will do business with you again if they feel their complaints were resolved quickly.

1. Customer complaints fall into several categories, including poor customer service and low-quality goods or services. It’s up to you to make their situations right. That means you must listen to their complaints, ask questions, get all the facts, apologize, offer options for solving their problems, and ask what they would like you to do for them.

2. Don’t get defensive or confrontational. Do whatever you can to satisfy your customers and retain their business. Practice service recovery and be relentless in making certain your customers are satisfied with your products and services.

3. Who is the irate customer and what is their mindset?
4. The importance of diffusing the situation

5. There are 6 steps for handling irate customers

6. What are the tools you can use to recover from stressful encounters and then to evaluate your performance.

7. They want a refund, more equitable resolution, conversation with someone that has the power to resolve the situation, acknowledgement of their wasted time, effort, and expense, restitution for their inconvenience.

8. What do they need? An advocate, clarification, understanding, to be heard, believed, and trusted. Treated fairly and like a human.

9. Every customer is a different person with a unique set of circumstances.

10. Keep cool and diffuse situation: 4 C’s Compassion, Calm, Confidence, Competence.

11. Effectively and efficiently working toward solutions shows your customers that their needs matter to you.

• Listen – carefully and with interest
• Put yourself in their shoes – imagine how you would feel
• Ask questions – actively listen to answers
• Suggest Alternatives – that address their concerns
• Apologize – without lay blame
• Solve the problem – quickly and efficiently

John Tschohl at SQI has training on how to get a winning customer service team.

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