5 Tips for business owners on how to properly handle customer complaints

December 19, 2022

Any business will inevitably deal with customer complaints at some point or another. How to decrease customer complaints is a significant challenge facing business owners, customer success managers, and customer service specialists.

 Regardless of how well-known your brand is, handling client complaints is never simple. But if you want to remain in this competitive business environment, you should never consider running away from issues. 

Instead, you must own up to your mistakes, accept responsibility, and seek ways to lower client complaints in a proactive way. Keep reading the article to learn about some of the tips on how to properly and gracefully handle customer complaints. 

Empathise with your customers’ worries

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with them, let them know that you genuinely care about the issue. Also, admit any mistakes you or your business committed. If there’s a misunderstanding, you can show your empathy by telling them you understand their frustration in a caring, supporting manner. 

Although you might not agree with everything the consumer says, you should nevertheless show respect for how they see and feel the issue. Always stay informed and read all you can about what you need to know about consumer protection.

Show gratitude to your customer

When a consumer complains, try to be as kind and caring as possible. Instead of simply grinning and seeming as though you care, sincerely express your gratitude for them sharing their issue or worry with you. 

For instance, you could remark right away that you value them taking the time to discuss their worries with you and that you want to be sure you understand all they’re saying. This gives you the chance to listen to them more and, perhaps, conveys to them your desire to pay attention to what they have to say. 

In the case of any consumer disputes, be sure to get in touch with an experienced consumer rights lawyer. They can assist you with matters like the creation of documents that can help you avoid these issues in the future and, in the event that a dispute does arise, can offer a clear procedure for resolving the claim.

Avoid making commitments you can’t keep

Customer complaints are most frequently related to broken promises. There have probably been cases in which a company assured you that your order will arrive the following day but it never did. Making misleading promises like this to customers will damage the reputation of your brand and may result in legal action. 

You should never overpromise and underdeliver in order to stop consumer complaints. You can always pledge to keep your word. The emphasis should be on adding value rather than luring clients in with exaggerated claims. Make sure you’re aware of the precise promises you have made to clients. So, be sure to review your quotations, product catalogs, and marketing letters to see if you can still meet your obligations.

Consider proactive feedback

You must become more proactive with your feedback process if you want to detect and lower customer complaint barriers. In this way you’ll be able to spot issues with proactive feedback before they get out of hand. Many companies only give clients a survey after their issue has been resolved. These surveys will assist you in receiving good reviews, but they’ll never show the whole story. 

You should regularly share surveys with customers to learn about their issues in order to provide a better experience. Customers can be given the chance to express themselves by being given the ability to respond to open-ended questions, for instance. As by monitoring these replies on a regular basis will help your brand address frequent issues and stop future customer complaints.

Provide a solution

You should provide a solution only once you have acquired enough information. Be sure to understand your company’s rules and what you can and can’t do. Making a commitment you can’t keep will simply cause you to fall short. Don’t forget to be respectful and caring when providing a solution. 

Inform the client of your willingness to assume responsibility for the situation and outline the steps you’ll take to resolve it. Make the transition easier by outlining the issue so your client doesn’t have to retell their narrative if an employee in another department is better suited to resolve it. 

Finally, to make sure everything is fine, it would be best to call them a few days later. Even a minor act of compensation, like a straightforward upgrade on the customer’s later purchase or a modest gift certificate, might transform this interaction from one of annoyance to one of satisfaction.

Wrapping up

With these five tips from the article, you’ll surely feel confident that you’ve improved both your customers’ experience and the success of your company. 

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