3 Keys to Handling Customer Complaints
How to Deal Effectively With Difficult Customers
Aug 18, 2009 Brian TubbsHandling customer complaints is one of the most important skills for customer service professionals. Providing top-notch customer service is, in fact, critical to a company's success. Effectively handling customer complaints requires patience, strong listening skills, the ability to identify valid complaints (as opposed to irrational grievances) and effectively deal with even the most difficult customers.
Executives, managers, and employees involved in customer service should handle customer complaints with the following keys in mind.
Value The Customer
This is foundational. Any enterprise engaged in commerce must provide excellent customer service, and this requires seeing customers as people- not simply as dollar signs. The customer should not be viewed as an interruption, nuisance, problem, or "necessary evil." The customer is the whole reason the business exists in the first place.
Practically, this means that companies should place a high value on their customers, and do all they can to convey a sense of importance and appreciation to each of them. This doesn't mean that the customer is always right, but it does mean that it's a "win-win" when the customer is satisfied, and a "lose-lose" when the customer is not.
Listen to The Customer
When a customer has a complaint, it's sometimes employee instinct to "tell the customer how it is." While it's understandable to be defend oneself and even company procedures, especially when the customer has been rude or aggressive, it's more important to listen to the customer.
As Stephen Covey, bestselling author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, puts it: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
Even if it's not possible to adjust company policy or directly satisfy the customer's issue, actively, calmly, and sincerely listening to the customer's complaint conveys respect and concern. And it helps reduce tension.
Avoid Negative or Harsh Language
When it comes time to respond to the customer's complaint, customer service professionals should carefully choose their words.
"Language alters our perception of reality, because we see the world through words," writes Dr. David J. Lieberman. "Language is the basis of thought and thought is the extension of emotion." (Lieberman, David J. Get Anyone to Do Anything and Never Feel Powerless Again. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000).
This point on language is both simple and subtle. The obvious application is that a person would wants to cool down an irate customer should use calming language. A more subtle point is that the very choice of words should be designed to elicit positive emotions in the hearer (i.e., refer to the customer's complaint as an "important and understandable concern"), and the language should be matched by soothing and open body language (i.e., no folded arms, no clenched fists, etc.).
Clearly, patience is a must-have virtue in employing the above keys. A patient professional is able to look at the situation and the customer objectively, and not allow his or her ego or feelings to cloud judgment and ratchet up tension unnecessarily.
Effectively handling customer complaints indeed requires patience, the ability to listen actively and emphatically, and to sort through the customer's grievance to identify the valid issues that need to be addressed. Such a person will be able then to effectively handle the most difficult customers and field even the most irate complaints. And a company with such professionals on board will provide the kind of top-notch customer service to help it thrive, even in a down economy.
Related Reading
Readers who liked this article should also check out "How to Effectively Cope With Stress" and "Public Speaking Tips and Techniques."
© 2009 Brian Tubbs
Read more at Suite101: 3 Keys to Handling Customer Complaints: How to Deal Effectively With Difficult Customers http://customer-relations.suite101.com/article.cfm/3_keys_to_handling_customer_complaints#ixzz0tLkpHwaG
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