Don't Ignore Unhappy Customers
It’s a lucky
organisation that can afford to ignore unhappy customers. The only entities that may be able to do this
are either government organisations (we have no choice but to deal with them)
and monopolies.
A 2013 survey by Accenture found out that:
- 71% of customers rely on word-of-mouth communications (just looks at the requests on Facebook if you need an example);
- 43% use official review websites;
- 25% use reviews and comments from social media websites.
One of my favourite themes is “online unhappiness”. Unhappy customers can spread negative views
online, on social media and by word-of-mouth.
They can reach an awful lot of people, and it’s not just other customers
who see these reviews, it’s our competition as well! Imagine the value of this free market insight
to them!
Negative reviews mean lost business mean no sales…
We’ll never avoid unhappy or angry customers – something
will always happen according to the law of averages when humans are involved to
make someone upset. What we can control, however, is our
reaction. My personal experience in
handling angry customers is that they want to be:
- Heard
- Respected
- Handled
My own approach in these situations is:
- Don’t fight back (difficult, especially if you know the customer’s “wrong”!);
- Remain under control (again, difficult in the face of what can be extreme provocation);
- Don't take it personally – they’re upset with my organisation, not necessarily me personally (unless I’m the one that messed up);
- Listen and ask questions to make sure I’ve really understood what’s going on (again, can be tricky);
- Show I’m actively listening, that I empathise and understand the issue;
- Apologise that they’ve had this experience (not necessarily that the company has made a mistake unless it’s clear that this is the case);
- Find a solution – use any resources necessary (shows that we’re serious) – and tell the customer when it has been found.
- Review what happened – what can we do to ensure it doesn't happen again?
- Finally - make sure everyone in the organisation knows that they are part of the solution, not just the "Customer Service Reps".
I’m not going to come up with trite quotes on “The customer
is always right” – we know that often they're not, but they have a right to expect to be respected, taken
seriously and handled professionally.
They’re the reason we have a job and why our businesses make money. Their complaints are a great source of free
information on how we can improve.
Finally, if we “get it right”, they’ll act as “free
advertising” to others as well as continuing to do business with us. What’s that worth?
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 11:56
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home