Overview of chapter 10
Remember this?
Problems have silver linings. Do you truly believe that a problem found is an opportunity discovered? Can you describe innovations that arose from problems: your own company's problems and your customers' problems? Do your customers naturally think of you as a provider of solutions?
What is the danger of doing too much for your customer? Are you really worried about having an oversatisfied customer? That is not much of a worry...but an unsatisfied customer is one of the most expensive problems you have.
In dealing with customers, it is important and preferable to prevent errors from occurring. However, since perfect service does not exist there will be times when complaints arise. If you do make a mistake that threatens your good relationship with a customer, however, you can still salvage the situation if you respond quickly and positively to fix the problem.
A typical business hears from only about 4% of dissatisfied customers. The rest usually just take their business elsewhere or suffer in silence. You may not hear their complaint relating to your service, but their friends and colleagues are very likely to. A single difficult or dissatisfied customer can destroy an otherwise positive day. Worse, the unhappy customer can break your concentration, raise your stress levels and steal from you your effectiveness with other customers.
In this chapter you will learn how to deal with such issues while maintaining your professionalism and sanity. This chapter is about making "life at the sharp end more comfortable" and making the handling of complaints more manageable. By the end of this chapter, you should be able to outline the importance of viewing complaints as opportunities - opportunities to put right the situation, opportunities for growth and also as opportunities to assess the service you provide.
Of course, not all complaints are warranted (but the customer perceives that they are). Not all customers are pleasant and often you have to resolve a problem that was created by someone other than yourself.
Remember that even if you find yourself serving internal customers (who can also be difficult or unhappy), then this chapter may provide you with some new ideas, refresh your memory or affirm that you are doing things well. You may also be able to make some suggestions to management as to how your organisation can improve its approach to customer service. Remember, that whilst an organisational approach to service excellence is required, one person can make a difference.
Topics
The topics to be studied in this chapter are:
- 10.1 Welcoming complaints
Some facts about customers - 10.2 Handling complaints:
a postcard from the sharp end
Recoveries
What to do - 10.3 Testing your standards
So how can you get assistance in using these techniques? - 10.4 Unhappy customers? Difficult customers?
Learning outcomes
When you have completed this chapter, you should be able to:
- identify and explain why complaints should be welcomed and viewed as an opportunity;
- handle complaints effectively, transferring complaints into valuable feedback;
- outline strategies to win over angry and abusive customers, being more successful with the most difficult-to-deal-with people;
- handle complaints for maximum customer satisfaction.
