Customer Complaints: 5 Tips for Handling Unsatisfied Clients
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Customer criticisms can be hard to stomach, but they’re an inevitable part of doing business. Explore strategies for turning negative experiences into positive ones.
Although handling customer complaints isn’t the best part of business ownership, resolving and learning from them benefits your brand. When customers reach out with a problem, you have seconds to listen, understand, and emphasize. A poor experience can compound the issue, but a positive one can build a long-term relationship.
Your approach and systems may differ over time, depending on the size of your team or the volume of complaints. However, if you start with simple yet effective tactics, you can build upon this excellence as you grow. Explore five ways to improve customer satisfaction when resolving complaints.
Use a system for handling customer complaints
If your company is new or hasn’t had many complaints, you may just wing it. But dealing with each issue on a case-by-case basis is unsustainable as your business expands. It’s better to develop scalable systems for handling complaints earlier than later. Indeed, an increase in negative customer feedback can signal that your business is growing too fast and that your current approach isn’t working.
Your complaint process may involve:
- Documenting customer complaints in a customer relationship management (CRM) program.
- Providing customer service scripts for employees and training them on handling challenging interactions.
- Creating a searchable customer service knowledge base to answer questions or concerns quickly and consistently.
- Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) for complaint resolution, average handle time, and cost per resolution.
- Using CRM or helpdesk software tools to set reminders for following up with dissatisfied customers.
- Examining customer feedback, identifying trends or patterns, and fixing the root cause of common problems.
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Demonstrate empathy
Start each call or message on a good note using soft skills like active listening and empathy. On a basic level, people just want to be heard. Repeating their issue to them is one way to show you’re listening. Also, simply saying a heartfelt, “I understand” can go a long way. Indeed, Zendesk found that 49% of surveyed consumers “are seeking more empathy from customer support agents.”
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Customer criticisms can be hard to stomach, but they’re an inevitable part of doing business. Explore strategies for turning negative experiences into positive ones.
Although handling customer complaints isn’t the best part of business ownership, resolving and learning from them benefits your brand. When customers reach out with a problem, you have seconds to listen, understand, and emphasize. A poor experience can compound the issue, but a positive one can build a long-term relationship.
Your approach and systems may differ over time, depending on the size of your team or the volume of complaints. However, if you start with simple yet effective tactics, you can build upon this excellence as you grow. Explore five ways to improve customer satisfaction when resolving complaints.
Use a system for handling customer complaints
If your company is new or hasn’t had many complaints, you may just wing it. But dealing with each issue on a case-by-case basis is unsustainable as your business expands. It’s better to develop scalable systems for handling complaints earlier than later. Indeed, an increase in negative customer feedback can signal that your business is growing too fast and that your current approach isn’t working.
Your complaint process may involve:
- Documenting customer complaints in a customer relationship management (CRM) program.
- Providing customer service scripts for employees and training them on handling challenging interactions.
- Creating a searchable customer service knowledge base to answer questions or concerns quickly and consistently.
- Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) for complaint resolution, average handle time, and cost per resolution.
- Using CRM or helpdesk software tools to set reminders for following up with dissatisfied customers.
- Examining customer feedback, identifying trends or patterns, and fixing the root cause of common problems.
Demonstrate empathy
Start each call or message on a good note using soft skills like active listening and empathy. On a basic level, people just want to be heard. Repeating their issue to them is one way to show you’re listening. Also, simply saying a heartfelt, “I understand” can go a long way. Indeed, Zendesk found that 49% of surveyed consumers “are seeking more empathy from customer support agents.”
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