Dealing with Difficult Customers: How to Resolve Customer Complaints Effectively
It’s an unavoidable fact of being a business owner: you will eventually encounter an unhappy customer, an impatient customer or someone who is just downright difficult to please. For the online store owner, handling the irate online customer “virtually” needs tact and timely execution. In this article, we’ll provide sound advice for dealing with customers that be summarized by the golden rule of customer service: treat your customers—even difficult customers—as you expect to be treated yourself.
Is the Customer Really ALWAYS Right?
In a word, yes! Providing great service to your customers is an ongoing challenge. Providing great service to angry, unrealistic, or irate customers can be an exceptional challenge. When the time comes to address an irate online store customer, it’s best to be prepared with a pro-active strategy so you’re not caught off guard in the heat of the moment.
The Better Business Bureau Recommends…
The Better Business Bureau recommends the following tips for dealing with unhappy customers: http://www.bbbvan.org/resolve_customer_complaints.php
When you receive your customer's complain, put yourself in their shoes and try to see the problem as though it were your own.
Disregard outrageous claims or expressions of frustration and stick to the central issue(s).
Acknowledge your customer's distress and apologize for it (even if it's not your fault).
Respond quickly and as briefly as you can.
Offer a settlement, a compromise, a goodwill gesture, or some options. Don't just dig in your heels, claiming that truth is on your side and that the other party deserves no consideration.
Do:
Listen.
Show empathy.
Remain calm and respectful.
Acknowledge the anger.
Apologize without accepting blame.
Agree with the person who is angry.
Don't:
Debate the facts.
Ask "why" questions.
Jump to hasty conclusions.
Other Tips
Make complaining easy: Provide customers with an easy method for venting their feelings. This can be done by placing contact form links at prominent locations on the storefront—and adding sentences like, “Are you satisfied? If not, please contact us or help us improve.”
Respond Fast: It’s a good idea to respond to complaining customers more quickly than to those who are satisfied: criticism spreads quicker than appreciation, and with the current pervasiveness of online bulletin boards, newsgroups, blogs, wikis, etc. criticism on the web not only spreads fast, it sticks.
Test the Waters: Do you generally know whether customers are satisfied with the ecommerce experience on your website? For many online storeowners the answer to this question is a resounding “No.” A simple way to get feedback is to create an online survey and market it to customers who have purchased via your site.
