9 Tips On Handling Complaints
Let's be honest. Complaints are a reality of business. Every company, no matter how great, responsive, or caring, receives some number of complaints – email, phone calls, letters, blog posts, etc. It's inevitable; you can't keep all people happy all the time.
Sometimes the complaint hurts. Sometimes it's personal. It especially hurts when you have a different opinion of the situation, when you realize you're dealing with perception. It's frustrating.
So, what do you do?
Here's my quick list:
1. Listen. Let the person at the other end of complaint be heard. Often this is their need; they need to get the frustration they have heard by someone.
2. Don't immediately respond. Pause, take a deep breath. If on the phone, resist the urge to yell back. If on email or other web-based communication tools, resist sending the nasty reply. You want to remain calm and in charge or your emotions. This isn't easy.
3. Listen Again. Separate what the person is complaining about from what they are now requesting. Handling the complaint and the request are two separate issues.
4. Escalate if necessary. Your business should already have in place a customer complaint escalation plan – a predetermined list of people to escalate to, internal procedures, and external expectations.
5. Don't promise anything you can't deliver. In the eyes of the person complaining, you've already failed. Don't add fuel to the fire by promising something you can't deliver.
6. If you need to research something or collaborate with others, say so. Similar to the tip above, don't guess at an answer, find an accurate one. Don't over commit yourself or others.
7. Clearly understand what the person wants now. Without agreeing to a request, clarify what the complainant wants after they issue their complaint. Do they want a refund, exchange, retroactive discount, ancillary products, an Apology, etc? You won't know what options you have until you know what the person complaining feels is appropriate compensation for their pain. You're not agreeing here, you want to understand.
8. Be careful responding in writing. Sad, but true. Written response can come back to you in a number of forms – legal action, posted on a website, etc. You never know. That doesn't mean you shouldn't write a letter, fax a message or send an email�…it means you need to be careful in your language.
9. Look over your options. Now that you know what the complaint is and what the complainant wants, you have to decide how to respond. Compromise may be an option. Dependant upon the nature of the complaint, you may decide to do nothing. In all cases, be clear in your response and provide closure.
Okay, what did I leave out? What would you add to my list?
Customer Service | Jim Logan | 19 January 2006 |
7 Comments
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By Steve Johnson, January 24, 2006 @ 9:14 am
Excellent article! In our online Ebay business, it is essential to handle complaints from customers immediately before our seller feedback rating suffers. Our motto: “The customer may not always be right, but the customer is always king!” We know that we’ll never be able to satisfy everyone we do business with, but we understand that we own a business, we don’t own our customers, and delivering more than we promise is the best way to help handle — maybe even prevent — customer complaints.
By Reginald Reyes, July 6, 2006 @ 7:11 pm
Best time I had encountered such an article! It’s timely since I had just finished finalizing my presentation on Handling Customer Complaints for our newly hired employees. . .thanks!
By jullya@link.net, April 23, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
Hello everyone. It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.
I am from Lanka and , too, and now am writing in English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “traditional dutch style zaandam wall clock.”
Waiting for a reply :P, Kalea.
By lig tv izle, August 1, 2009 @ 7:06 am
Thanks for posting about this, I would love to read more about this topic.
By gram, August 8, 2009 @ 9:50 am
great article! Thanks so much for the depth and understanding at which you covered the topic. it’s a useful piece of information not only for me but for many others. have read a lot on the topic at different blogs and books (download mainly from http://www.picktorrent.com but this piece really gives food for thought and is most helpful. one shouldn’t hire any psychiatrists if his workers were so well informed:)
By karal oyun, January 23, 2010 @ 9:41 pm
lan nie eklemiosun dallama
By delta, August 21, 2010 @ 7:17 am
great article