Handling Customer Complaints
Steps In Resolving Issues and Improving Customer Satisfaction
Oct 8, 2009
Every company needs to have a policy and system in place for receiving, handling, redressing, and recording customer complaints. This can be vital not only for maintaining good customer relations but also in case of legal issues over warranty, corporate responsibility, or customer treatment.
Standard advice for handling customer complaints usually includes the following:
- Remain calm, patient and professional
- Don't take it personally- learn to accept or deflect customer anger
- Listen to the customer without being defensive
- Develop and implement an action plan
- Follow up
Handling Customer Complaints to Build Customer Relations
The procedure outlined below exemplifies these basics. It is based on the CRM (Customer Relations Management) complaint-handling process of a large Canadian manufacturing concern.
- Provide accessibility for customers with concerns. Make it easy for people to reach someone. (This will include such avenues as a contact email address on the web site, contact information in the owner manual, a dedicated help line, and perhaps even a presence on Twitter or Facebook.)
- Treat every complaint seriously, and every complainant as a valued customer with an important and significant concern.
- Apologize for the inconvenience the customer feels. This recognizes and acknowledges the customer's feelings and concerns without admitting fault or assigning blame in any way.
- Agree that a problem exists; never disagree or argue or deny. The customer needs action, not excuses. Again, this does not admit fault or cast blame either way but is a step to clarifying the central issue and moving to resolution.
- Ask the key question, "What else?" This will uncover further information and may reveal hidden issues behind the stated complaint. The presenting complaint may be a defective product, but "What else?" may uncover that the sales staff need to be better trained, a vital issue in improving company performance and reducing the number of future complaints.
- Resolve the complaint. If the person receiving the complaint doesn't have the authority to deal with it, the issue needs to be passed immediately to someone who does have authority. The customer needs to understand the reason for the referral so it is not seen as "passing the buck."
- Thank the customer for bringing the issue to attention. This is important because the customer, by coming directly to the company instead of complaining to friends or griping in a blog, has provided an opportunity to redress a concern, improve service, and regain customer loyalty.
- Follow up to ensure that the issue has been resolved, that the customer is satisfied, and that the CRM process has worked correctly.
Recording and Tracking Customer Complaints
It is important to record and track customer issues. What gets measured gets done – and good recording can help the company spot patterns and trends to improve quality of product or service as well as improving customer relations.
If there is a difficulty with the resolution process (such as a customer who moves to legal confrontation or launches a Better Business Bureau complaint), good documentation will be important.
Most CRM software will handle the job, and there is even free complaint tracking software, such as the open-source Request Tracker, that can be used by smaller businesses.
Perhaps the best in customer relations comes from those companies who believe that every employee works in the Customer Service department. These companies will have clear policies, a set of procedures to follow (which includes a feedback loop to confirm resolution of each issue), and a consistent method of recording and tracking complaints to ensure continuous improvement.
Related Articles
- Types of Complaining Customers – A paper published at the University of Florida outlines five types of complaining customers and presents strategies for effective handling of each.
- Customer Complaint Management Software – What to look for in issue tracking software for business.
- What is a Warranty? – CSRs need to understand product warranties in order to respond appropriately to customer complaints. Customers need to understand them to get appropriate service.
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