Building and maintaining relationships with customers is crucial for the success, profitability, and growth of a business. A core part of customer relations is learning how to handle customer complaints and their feedback.
How a customer complaint is handled can be the difference between keeping your existing customer and losing them altogether. However, more often than not, businesses fail to effectively handle customer complaints. This need not be the case for your business Nowadays, there are tools like live chat solutions and help desk software, Hosted live Chat that help out businesses.
Negative customer queries, even the ones containing harsh words can provide your business with a great opportunity to make the customer realize that you operate a great company. According to research, shockingly, up to 80 percent of the customers who go away were “satisfied” with the original company, but left because their queries were mishandled. In order to keep your customers, good customer service can be key. And good customer service can be defined by how you handle customer complaints. Following are some ways to handle customer complaints:
How to Handle Customer Complaints.
1. Pay attention to what the customer is saying
If you don’t let the customer finish their query, they might think you are less concerned with the problem they are facing. The nature of the problem can affect how upset a customer is with your company. A good practice is to listen carefully to what they have to say and even repeat it for them to know that you have.
2. Get to know all that you can about the problem from the customer
The more you know, the more you will understand the problem faced by the customer. Getting the details right from the Hosted live chat system can help provide the appropriate solution for a specific complaint.
3. Don’t pass the blame
Instead of blaming another person or department in the company when it comes to addressing a customer making a complaint, an apology could be a better option. Wherever applicable, you can even try explaining the reason behind the issue that the customer might be facing or how long it will take to be solved.
4. If you are transferring the call, explain why
Continuous call transfers to different departments of the company, in addition to the long hold time can make an already upset customer more upset, particularly if the issue needs to be addressed immediately. Wasting the customer’s time especially if he/she is in a hurry or transferring calls over and over again without offering a valid reason do not make for good customer service.
A better practice is to address their concern as quickly as possible and if transfer of call needs to take placed then an appropriate reason should be provided for the case.
5. Make it quick
Solve the problem keeping in mind that time is of the essence. Dragging out a problem for longer than necessary can affect a customer’s mood especially if no solution or proper explanation is provided until that time.
Conclusion
So, the next time your business handles customer complaints, keep the aforementioned points in mind to help you create a better customer service environment and to maintain good terms between the customer and your company.