Topic: BFL Product Failures / Underperformance. - page 9. (Read 28126 times)

How BFL should be handling customer complaints?

Do: Listen closely to the complaint – Before you start quoting your company’s policy or trying to deflect blame, 
try actually listening to your customer’s complaint. Put yourself in their shoes for a change. Are they making a valid point? 
What are they asking for you to do to resolve it? And remember, if one customer is complaining about something, you can 
be sure they’re probably not the only one who has encountered this situation. Most customers don’t bother complaining 
because they don’t think it does any good. Instead, they just take their business elsewhere.

Don’t: Try to argue with your customer – Look, dealing with an upset customer is never fun, but you have to handle the 
situation professionally. This means you don’t need to get in an argument with your customer. Handling complaints isn’t 
about trying to win an argument. It’s about minimizing damage and trying to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Do: Use complaints as an opportunity to improve – Every complaint represents an opportunity for your company to improve. 
Look closely at every complaint you receive, and figure out what you can do to keep that situation from ever coming up again.

Don’t: Think losing one customer is no big deal – If you really were losing just one customer, then maybe it wouldn’t be that big
 of a deal. But that’s not the reality. They used to say that upset customers would tell about a dozen other people about their 
poor experience. Well, with Twitter, blogs, forums, consumer complaint websites, and other online outlets, today’s disgruntled 
customer can tell thousands of people about their poor experience with your company. Never forget that.

Do: Be proactive in finding complaints – Speaking of customers venting their frustrations online, you should always know what’s 
being said about your company online. Monitor brand mentions with Google Alerts, Twitter alerts, Board Tracker, and other similar
reputation management tools. When you find these complaints online, try to fix them if possible.

Don’t: Beat customers over the head with your company policy – Upset customers don’t want to listen to you quoting back your 
company policy to justify why you can’t help them. Sure, it’s important to have policies in place, but you can’t view every single 
situation in black-and-white terms. That’s when you end up losing the human element. Be reasonable, and be flexible.

Do: Go the extra mile to resolve your customer’s complaint – Remember earlier when I said “Most customers don’t bother complaining 
because they don’t think it does any good”? Well, you can be the exception. If there is anything you can do to make sure the 
customer walks away satisfied, do it. Here’s a tip: Ask the customer what they would like for you to do to resolve the situation. 
Chances are, they have already have an idea of what they think is a fair solution, and this helps to put the ball in their court.

Don’t: Make the same mistake more than once – Mistakes happen. It’s a part of doing business, but you should never make the 
same mistake twice. This might mean retraining employees or changing your policy, but by all means, do whatever it takes to avoid 
making the same mistake twice.

http://www.ereleases.com/prfuel/handling-customer-complaints/