Turning customer complaints
into Sales
Complaints offer companies an amazing
insight and the chance to improve their services. However, many companies do not
at all value them as much as they really should, and many try to avoid receiving
them. Complaints shed light on where your company might fall short and where you
could excel. Negative feedback can be used as a driving force behind product and
service enhancements, new offerings, and outbound sales and marketing campaigns.
Analyze each situation carefully.
You can never eliminate customer
complaint. If you are running a business – no matter of what size – you will
have at one point customers complaining. Some mistakes will happen regardless of
how carefully you try to prevent them. Expect to get a few complaints
periodically. It’s part of operating a business. But – you can and should plan
for complaints. Proper planing will help you to make the best out of customer
complaints. Always handle customer complaints with a positive attitude. Smile
while talking to the customer on the phone or when you write an email. It does
not matter if you are responsible for what happened or if the customer made a
mistake and blames it on you. Make your customer happy now and he will reward
you with more sales later on.
Surprise your customer with a fast response
to his/her complaint. If you can’t solve the problem right away, make sure that
you keep a good level of communication alive. Nothing bothers people more than
the feeling of being ignored – especially in touchy situations like this. The
longer a customer has to worry about getting the problem solved, the less likely
he will accept a solution and remain your customer.
Grade the level of
the complaint. If you did screw up – fix it. Don’t have the customer be
responsible for your mistakes. Let the customer know that you made a mistake and
what your plan is. Let him know what you learned from the situation and what you
will do to prevent future situations from happening. If it is the customers
fault, decide if it is worth keeping this customer. If the customer has never
represented a problem and does not seem to be a troublemaker, it is well worth
to keep him and to make him happy – if the price is reasonable. Don’t just only
look at the short-term, but also consider the mid to long term.
You have
decided to solve the issue and to take the blame. Congratulations. Take
responsibility for resolving your customer’s complaint even if the problem was
not your fault. Apologize for the inconvenience to the customer. Briefly
summarize the situation and explain the cause of the problem. Don’t lie. But -
good wording can help you here. Explaining your mistake in proper wording can
still describe you as a person who knows what happened and still is in control.
Don’t be blaming someone else for the problem. It sounds like a cheap excuse.
Now it is time to make the winning move and to turn this customer into a
person creating referals for your business. Surprise him by solving the problem
AND by giving the customer something extra to compensate him for the
inconvenience. This will put the customer in the situation of having something
received for free. He feels obligated and honored. He will feel he came out of
the situation with a great deal at his hand. This helps the customer a) to
forget about the initial problem he had and b) instead, he will remember the
special attention you gave him when being asked about your
services.
Follow-up with the client after a few days and again after a
month. Make sure that the client is happy. Of course – make sure that if you
caused the problem, that it won’t happen again. You might not have a second
chance and the market out there is brutal. Your competitors are just waiting for
your mistakes.
While others just move on after get a complaint out of
the way, you should take the time write everything down. It could be just some
sort of a journal or a professional complaint database software that you
purchased. Keep track of every complaint and come back frequently to revisit
each item. Make sure that you are not falling short of avoiding similar
situations. Proper handling of a touchy situation, can result in increasing
sales and higher customer satisfaction.