“68% of marketers are focused on building an amazing online reputation and investing in customer experience for better productivity.”
Businesses are established with a view to earn profit and build a strong client base that can sustain their success. In this digital marketing arena, the customer is the real king. All the marketing and sales strategies are focused on enhancing the customer experience in a way that generates brand loyalty. Customers bring productivity to the business. Hence, it becomes essential to treat them nicely and cater to their diverse requirements.
You can’t simply ignore your customers or leave them unattended and wait for business revenue. From loyalty to credibility, your customers take your business to the next level. Positive customer experience does not only equal happy customers, but it also adds to the business revenue. When your customers are satisfied with your products or services, they will eventually get converted into sales and bring revenue to the business. Unhappy customers, on the other hand, are a result of negative marketing or unsatisfactory products or services that often affects the overall growth of the business. From website development company to the SEO team, everyone has to pay attention to customer experience.
Why Customer Experience is So Important?
Customer experience is nothing but the way your customers perceive their engagement with your brand.
But why customer experience is so important for a business?
Businesses who have showcased remarkable performance in enhancing customer experience are proved to generate 17% revenue within 5 years, whereas, those with poor customer experience management were only able to realize 3% over the same period of time.
And this is something that makes customers experience the pulse of a business.
Why is it Essential To Manage Customer Complaints?
As mentioned above, great customer experience results in business success; every other aspect related to customers play a significant role in sustaining that growth. While a successful marketing strategy can help you enhance customer experience, the slightest of the mistake can bring down your reputation as well. Irrespective of their demographics, customers tend to experience some issues with the brand and register their complaints about the same.
There will be a time when your customers will brim your inboxes with complaints and give you negative feedback for your services. It depends on you as an entrepreneur to effectively deal with those complaints and provide your customers with the best solution for their concerns. Managing customer complaints is also necessary to maintain customer retention rates. Suppose, if you give no ears to customer complaints, one day you will end up losing the loyal client base, altogether.
Customer complaints can be overwhelming, agreed. Further easing up your hassle, below are the 10 amazing customer complaint management tips that you can use.
1. Control Your Emotions When It Comes To Customers
Whether your customer is being furious on you or constantly nudging you for some information, you must never lose your cool. Keeping your emotions aside is the foremost thing you must do while addressing customer complaints. It’s quite evident that dealing with numerous customers and listening to their issues on a daily basis can be a frustrating task, but it is important to remain calm and politely provide them with the best solutions. Patiently listen to all their queries and concerns, ask them for some time to resolve their issues, and promptly give them the right solution. The end goal must always be satisfying for your customers. You cannot afford to lose your customers because of your emotions. Can you?
2. Never Ever Challenge Their Complaints
There are instances when customers’ complaints seem senseless and completely irrational. But you can’t just tell your customers that they are wrong and their complaints are utter nonsense. This would be the biggest mistake you can make in your profession. Try not to challenge their complaint and prove them wrong. Always pay attention to their complaints and even if they are wrong, politely provide them with the legitimate reasons for proving them wrong. Turning them down and making them sound ridiculous will only make things worse for your brand reputation. Instead of challenging them, listen to what they are saying, and appreciate them to build a strong relationship. So, always keep in mind to never prove your customers wrong about their complaint.
3. Don’t Forget To Thank Your Customers
“Kill them with kindness” is the apt phrase to ponder on while dealing with customer complaints. Though their complaints might be frustrating to you, it is always good to appreciate them for sharing their complaints. This way, you can create a credible reputation among your customers. By thanking them for registering their complaint, you are acknowledging your customer compliant as valuable feedback to improve. Make them believe that their complaints are a means for their improvements, and you would welcome more feedback from them. Thank them before you start resolving their issue. Tell them right away that you appreciate them for their efforts; this will make your customer even more comfortable sharing their views in the future.
4. Be All Ears To Their Complaints
Customer complaints can be frustrating, irritating, overwhelming, and often get on your nerves, but the best way to deal with them without offending your customers is to listen to them properly. Don’t let them feel you are uninterested in listening to their concerns, and this will create a negative impression about your company. Instead, be attentive and engaging while they are mentioning their complaints to you. Acknowledging what they want to say and completely hearing their complaints will also give you the opportunity to provide them with the best solution possible. Irrespective of what complaints are they making, be it about your company, employees, products/services, or stating their concerns, it is your responsibility to let them feel comfortable and make them believe they are being listened to.
5. Offer Complete Support
Whether it is being available round the clock or providing them with all-encompassing solutions, it is important to offer your customers complete support. Support can be anything, from listening to their concerns to providing them with solutions. To offer them complete support, it is important first to listen to them completely and jot down all the key points which need to be addressed. By paying thorough attention to what they said, you will be able to give your best support. It is imperative to remember, the way your support works for them will result in how your customer will perceive your brand. Hence, it becomes more than important to cater to their requirements and satisfy them in the best way possible. Don’t forget that your support will strengthen their brand loyalty.
6. Explain Company’s Intention To Improve
Customers don’t file a complaint just because they have to waste their precious time talking about your company’s fault. They complain because they want their favorite brand to make some tweaks in their services so that they can be satisfied. When customer experience becomes an important aspect of your business, you must do everything possible to make things better for them. Highlight the things that the company is doing to enhance the customer experience. For instance, if your customer has a complaint regarding the late delivery of the product, you should start addressing the complaint by saying “We understand on-time delivery is important for you, and we are doing our best to improve it.” This way you can make your customers actually believe that the company has the right intention to improve.
7. Always Be Flexible With Your Solutions
It is necessary to resolve the complaints of your customers and give them satisfactory services. But, there are times when you can’t find any possible solution to the respective customer’s complaint. Rather than saying, you can’t help them and turning them down, try to find the next best solution that can make things right to some extent. Always try your best to find a solution and ask your time from customers to come up with the best solution possible. Brainstorm all the ideas you can think of to make your customer happy. Never leave your customer dissatisfied; this will only result in decreasing your customer retention rate. If there’s actually nothing you can do to solve your customer’s complaint, you can add some gifts or bonuses for those customers who are unsatisfied with your services. This way, you will build strong credibility for your business and make them believe you actually care.
8. Always Add an Apology
Apologizing doesn’t cost a penny, does it? When it comes to customer complaint management, apologizing can even earn you profit. Yes, you heard it right. Whenever you are unable to address your customer’s complaints, always end your conversation with a genuine apology for not being able to address their issue. Let them know you are extremely sorry for not providing them with the appropriate solution when they are unconvinced or disappointed with your solution. Always make sure to start your conversation with a Thank You when they come up with a complaint and end it with a Sorry when you are unable to provide the right solution. Apologizing to your customer will not only help you create a strong reputation but will also make your customer come back next time as well.
9. Try To Educate Your Customers
It’s not always about listening to their query or concern and provide them with an appropriate solution. Sometimes, taking an interest in their problem and educating them, in general, would help in building a strong relationship with your customers. Whether you have provided the solution or not for their complaint regarding your brand, it is always good to advise and educate them further. Telling them things that are not concerned about your brand but related to their query, in general, will make your customers believe you are not persuading them but sincerely concerned about getting them help. Try building a connection with your customer, so that they come back to your brand for suggestions. This way, you can improve your brand reputation and strengthen your customer retention rate.
10. Never Forget to Follow Up
Customer complaint management is not limited to listening to their query and providing them with a solution. You also need to timely follow up with your customers, whether they are experiencing the same concern or not. By following up with your customers will create a sense of responsibility. Within 24-48 hours time span you must follow up with your customers and ask them if they are satisfied with the provided solution or is there anything you can assist them with. Following doesn’t take much time but will impact significantly to your customers as they will understand that the company is taking an interest in resolving their query.
Customer complaint management is a vital part of the customer experience. If you are not able to address your customers’ complaints in the right manner, you cannot work upon enhancing the customer experience.
It is important here to understand that customers complain when they experience something dissatisfactory about your brand. And it becomes mandatory to cater to their complaints.
If you have any trouble regarding how to manage customer complaints, then take help from the above-mentioned tips. Make sure to adhere to the tips whenever you are managing customer complaints.
Remember, criticism gives you a way to improve your credibility.
Author Bio:
Ravi Sharma, CEO of Webomaze is a highly enthusiastic entrepreneur. His love for making every business reach the greatest heights in their industry made him establish his Web Development & Digital Marketing Company delivering the best eCommerce development & SEO services. He has got a great grip on the idea of effective eCommerce Strategies, SEO processes, and tactics which are vital for virtual exposure. He is a fun-loving person and a keen traveler who always hunts to find adventure in new places.