The way a brand responds to complaints and unhappy customers has a big impact on its reputation. Customer service is important for developing brand loyalty. This was the center of the business model that allowed companies like Nordstrom’s and Zappos to thrive.
Since the internet and social media give people their own platform to share information about their daily lives, it is even more important for companies to provide excellent customer service.
Since it is now very simple for customers to share their experiences with others, how you respond to unhappy customers will shape what is said about you going forward. What can you do to to make sure you respond properly to an unhappy customer so you both have the most pleasant outcome possible?
Is there a way you can turn unhappy customers into something that is helpful to your business?
Yes, there is. If you’re willing to listen to feedback, each unhappy customer has the potential to become one of your company’s best advertisers, a key referral source, or a secret undercover agent.
Here are five ways to turn unhappy customers into a valuable resource for your business:
Make Your Customer Feel Heard.
The complaints are all about things that were supposed to happen but didn’t. These are all examples of customer service issues. In any event, your client was inconvenienced or worse. The problem is severe enough for the customer to contact you.
If you try to solve an unhappy customer’s problem immediately, it may make the customer even more upset. If the customer is unhappy or angry, the first thing you should try to do is get them into a more agreeable frame of mind.
An unhappy customer often just wants to feel understood. If you immediately jump to a resolution, the customer won’t feel like you care about their problem.
We all like to feel that we’re special, so it’s important to take the time to listen to customers even if their complaint is a common one. Try to restate what the person is saying by putting yourself in their shoes and understanding how they feel. This way, you can show them that you not only understand the situation, but also understand how they feel.
It is important to remember that every call or message on social media is important and that the way you handle the conversation from the start can help to diffusing the situation.
Although it may be difficult to remain calm when someone is criticizing your product or service, it is important to remember that this feedback can be useful. It is also possible that this person could become a loyal customer if handled correctly.
An unhappy customer is always going to be more honest with you than anyone else. When you’re talking to customers, pay attention to whether there are any problems with your internal processes that become apparent. Make sure to take detailed notes so you can fix the issue later.
Dominos was often the target of jokes, with many people complaining that their pizza tasted like cardboard. The company tied with Chuck E. In 2009, Brand Keys conducted a survey of consumer taste preferences, with cheese coming in last place.
The company looked at their unhappy customers and decided to change their pizza recipe. They are encouraging consumers and food bloggers to try their new pizza and leave feedback through social media. People were willing to give Dominos another chance because the company was transparent and willing to listen to criticism.
” In a documentary created by Dominos, CEO Patrick Doyle stated that you can use negative comments to make yourself better. He said that you can either let them get you down or use them to make yourself more excited and motivated to improve. We did the latter.”
Build a Positive Reputation.
One the one hand, an unhappy customer that is transformed into a delighted one becomes even more loyal than a satisfied customer. We are more satisfied when we have a problem that is satisfactorily handled than if we never had the problem to begin with.
Nordstrom is known for providing excellent customer service, especially when it comes to processing returns. The company has a generous return policy, and store managers have a lot of freedom in how they implement it. For example, one store supposedly accept tires as a return, even though Nordstrom’s doesn’t sell tires! The story, which is just one of many, quickly spread and helped develop the Nordstrom brand, which is known for providing great individual attention and amazing service.
When you make your customers happy by resolving their issues and then going above and beyond their expectations (see the second tip), your customers will be motivated and excited to share their experience.
People are happy to spread the word that a company went out of their way to help them because it makes them feel special and important. Your company can take advantage of customers’ positive experiences by re-posting them on social media.
Nothing is better for your brand image than receiving positive, authentic customer testimonials without being asked for them.
Every time you have a customer who is angry or combative, you have a chance to create a positive, long-lasting relationship with them.
Damage Control – Protect Your Brand from Negative Mentions.
The old adage that when someone has a bad experience with customer service, they’ll tell ten of their friends, is no longer accurate. That was before the Internet, smartphones and social media.
If one customer is unhappy with your company, they can reach a lot of people very quickly through social media and other channels.
It seems that negative comments are more contagious than positive comments. You’ve probably seen videos of customer service representatives making complaints worse by being rude, not listening, and not resolving the issue.
unhappy customers should be seen as an opportunity to fix the problem and not as a lost cause. Unresolved complaints tend to escalate. As unhappy customers post to social media pages, more customers join the conversation.
If your brand is the subject of a loud conversation, it will probably be a negative one that will spread to others in your target market. If you give your customers good service and make them feel like their voices are being heard, you can minimize the amount of negative publicity you get.
Stay Professional Even in Unpleasant Situations
If you work in customer service and deal with customers regularly, it’s likely that you will encounter difficult customers occasionally. These are the customers who are very frustrating, make you angry, or cause you to say something you shouldn’t.
And by difficult customers I’m not only referring to angry or obnoxious customers; difficult customers can mean any number of bad behaviors, including customers who are:
- Indecisive
- Melodramatic
- Overly analytical
- Intoxicated
- Condescending
- Or even mentally unstable
You can’t control the types of customers you have to deal with, whether they’re behaving badly for a legitimate reason or not. Sometimes it isn’t the customer who causes bad behavior.
If you say or do something that causes a customer to become upset, confused, or obnoxious, it will be done unintentionally. It can be difficult to interact positively with the customer when that happens.
Although you may have caused the problem, you can still learn how to control the way you handle your customers. How you respond will determine if you are able to get the conversation back on track and successfully complete the contact.
An expert in the field of customer service, Renée Evenson, suggests using powerful phrases of courtesy, regret, assurance, empathy, and appreciation to help you remain calm and confident throughout your interaction.
When you are speaking with rude or angry customers, you may be tempted to get angry in return. However, it is important to remain professional at work.
The attitude of customers is due to the situation. The message is not for you, the person on the other end of the chat.
Furthermore, the recipient may misinterpret the sender’s text message due to the lack of verbal and nonverbal cues. If you react to the anger or other negative emotions expressed by customers, it isn’t productive and can lead to more problems.
When dealing with a difficult customer, you need to be very careful with your responses.
The tone of your text can be misconstrued, so be careful not to send anything that could be interpreted as anger, resentment, sarcasm or condescension to angry customers.
Understanding what the customer really wants is crucial.
When speaking with a customer who is angry and upset, you’ll need to move past the initial emotions to figure out what the customer really needs. It can be something as simple as an apology, a free upgrade to resolve the problem, or a discount on their bill. Something to show them that you’re sorry and that you’re taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The customer isn’t always looking for the most innovative solution, sometimes they just want the problem to be fixed quickly and efficiently.
Don’t just give something for free or at a discount until you know what the customer wants to achieve. If you offer things randomly to customers it will only upset them because you’re not considering what they need.
In many cases, reviewing the customer’s history, previous chats, and notes left by other chat operators can give you a better understanding of what the customer wants to achieve.
Experience with similar customer situations can be helpful in figuring out the best resolution.
If you’re not sure how to deal with a customer complaint, talk to other operators or supervisors for help. if you do not think you can resolve the complaint, just transfer the chat to a more experienced operator on the team.
Make Sure Exactly When You Should Apologize to Customers and How
Even if it’s not your fault, saying “sorry” is the most important thing to do in a crisis, according to The Crisis Communication Handbook for Customer Service.
Some people say that apologies shouldn’t be about taking blame for a crisis. The purpose of an apology is to show empathy towards the person you are apologizing to, and feeling genuinely sorry for the pain or inconvenience they have experienced. It does not matter who is at fault for the situation.
Even when the crisis is not your fault, such as when a third-party vendor has an outage, your customers will still hold you responsible since it is your product that is not working.
Beverly Engel, the author of The Power of Apology, explains why apologies can be so powerful in crisis interactions:
- A person who has been harmed feels emotional healing when he is acknowledged by the wrongdoer.
- When we receive an apology, we no longer perceive the wrongdoer as a personal threat.
- Apology helps us to move past our anger and prevents us from being stuck in the past.
- Apology opens the door forgiveness by allowing us to have empathy for the wrongdoer.
A simple apology can go a long way in a world where companies love to play the blame game to protect themselves.
Alternatively, some companies tend to evaluate situations from a legal perspective, as presented in The Organizational Apology.
The company’s lawyers may be more concerned with whether any laws were violated, and caution managers that an apology could be seen as an admission of responsibility (which could open the company up to lawsuits) rather than as an attempt to sympathize with the person who was wronged.
A bad experience can lead to a customer complaint, or, in severe cases, a lawsuit.
Does sorry mean guilty, then? What does your customer service say about your brand? Does it show that you’re committed to providing a great experience,
This is a delicate topic, as you can see by the fact that you need to apologize to customers. Some customer service experts argue that it is always appropriate to apologize to customers, while others argue that it is not always appropriate to do so.
It is especially important for you to know when it is acceptable to apologize to your customers as a future customer service representative.
This is important to know in case you need to do it.
The most annoying thing a customer service agent can do is to use a generic, insincere apology.
Definitely sympathize/empathize the right way with customers, or else it’ll come across like you’re just reading off a script or copying and pasting text into a chat window.
In Summary
. While there is no ideal way to fix any issue, planning ahead can help you to respond to common customer service problems with poise and composure. This will enable you to maintain high standards and make better choices, no matter what obstacles you face.
