PRESENTIAMOCI! - 7 simple steps to help you resolve complaints and delight yo Mims - Mar Ott 22, 03:13:26 Oggetto: 7 simple steps to help you resolve complaints and delight yo
7 simple steps to help you resolve complaints and delight your customers. Discover how to "Dazzle Right".
I recently visited a local shop that sells computer equipment. For a few minutes I was left sitting at a desk whilst the assistant went off to process some paperwork. And
, whilst I was sat there, I was able to listen in on a very heated conversation that was going on just a few feet away.
A couple had bought a printer and experienced a whole succession of problems. They had made many visits to the shop and were now quite desperate and angry. They simply wanted to return the printer and get their money back.
The assistant who was trying to help really didn't have the first idea about how to handle this confrontation. Not knowing what to do he simply smiled.
?Don't just stand there with that stupid smile on your face!? yelled the customer. ?Do something!?
What a shame that a customer can get into this state. And all because the assistant wasn't trained or prepared to handle the complaint.
Extensive research into customer complaints has been done by TARP (Technical Assistance Research Programs Inc), now known as . They found that:
1. Only 1-5% of customers will escalate their complaint to a local manager or head office. This means that in most cases the business owners or managers don't even get to know that there has been a complaint.
2. Twice as many people are told about a bad experience than they are about a good experience. This means that unhappy customers are turning into terrorists and doing huge damage to your business.
3. For major problems
, 91% of customers won't complain at all. They just walk away. What an awful way to lose a customer! But customers who complain can become more loyal than if they had no complaint at all ? provided that the complaint is handled quickly and resolved to their satisfaction. Marriott researched customer intentions following a visit to one of their hotels. They found that:-
* For customers who no problems during their stay, 89% said that they intended to use Marriott again.
* For customers who had experienced a problem that had not been corrected to their satisfaction, only 69% would use Marriott again.
* But for customers who had experienced a problem and the problem had been resolved before they left the hotel
, a staggering 94% said that they would use Marriott again! Customer complaints are a great opportunity for us to delight our customers, improve our business and gain customer loyalty. So how do you do it?
I've recently been working with a small business close to where I live. It's a great little business. Super people, working very hard and really trying hard for their customers. However
, every once in a while they get a customer complaint. And, when they do, I see some interesting things start to happen.
Firstly
, they are hurt. Because they are working very hard and really trying hard for their customers they feel hurt. Criticism is always difficult to accept no matter how positive you try to be. And the harder that you are working to please the customer, the deeper the criticism cuts.
Secondly, they try to prove that the customer is wrong. Probably every business in the world goes through this same sort of problem. And it would be easy to say that the customer is wrong
, that the customer didn't understand, or that the customer didn't do what we told him or her.
So this is how I've helped the people in this business to approach these situations:-
1. Wear the customer's shoes. Very few customers are going to complain unless they've got a real problem. So when a customer does take the time and trouble to let you know that you've got a problem don't reject them.
Get behind the problem. Look at the problem from their point of view. How did this arise? What were they expecting? How did the reality match up to their expectations? Whatever they perceive, is their reality.
2. The best feedback we can get comes in the form of complaints. It would be nice if every single customer told us what a great job we were doing but it wouldn't help us to improve our service. Complaints tell us how we could do it better.
This business has also introduced a suggestion scheme. There is nothing to stop a member of the Team using a customer complaint to come up with a great idea and putting it in the suggestion scheme. And they get rewarded for the suggestion!
3. If one person says it
, then there may be ten others who are also suffering but don't like to complain. So when resolving one customer's problem, look to see if there are other customers who might also be affected. If you can solve things for them before they complain you earn huge loyalty.
4. Managing perceptions is all about letting the customers know what to expect.
So many businesses over promise and under deliver. No one wants to be let down. They would rather have a more realistic proposition in the first place. So be honest with your customer.
Keep your customer informed. If there's going to be a problem then tell the customer but think it through and finish on a good note. For example: ?I'm sorry but there's going to be a delay with your delivery. But I have spoken to the driver and he will be with you in 15 minutes.?
5. Sometimes the people in this business will say things like, ?But I told the customer that this was going to happen?
, or ?We did write and explain all this before?.
What this tells me is that despite some good efforts, they're still not communicating properly with their customers. Many people feel that communication is all about sending out messages ? writing a letter, sending an email
, leaving a message on the ansaphone. But this is not communication!
Communication only happens when the same message that is sent, is received and correctly understood. If customers do not understand the communication then the
You .
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