-Priyanka Prasad
A few months back I ordered a custom-made hand-crafted nameplate for our new house. I was ruffling through different websites and I came across a very interesting Instagram page of a small business owner who had great reviews. I instantly placed an order with my custom design and recommendations. Considering, the store was very new and I had my doubts, I still put my trust and waited for the order to arrive. I had to consistently follow up with them to know where my order was and it took almost around 2 weeks for the order to arrive contrary to the one week that was promised.
When I received the order, the color of the base of the nameplate was entirely different from what was shown. I was disappointed. I raised this issue and sought a resolution. It rather came as a shock when the store owner, instead of providing a resolution, defended its position and showed his reluctance to do anything about it. I then decided never to buy from this store again and neither to recommend this store to anyone else. That was the time when this store not only lost a returning customer but consequently lost several potential customers, which it could have gained had he shown a positive approach and provided a resolution.
Let’s be honest here. As a business owner, you cannot avoid customer complaints. No matter how hard you work on your products, you will have an unhappy customer. You cannot escape customer complaints and build your brand. Customer feedback and customer satisfaction form an integral part of building and growing your brand. If you know how to handle customer complaints effectively you can turn a liability into an opportunity.
Customer Complaints
Customer complaints are feedback about your product or service that you receive when they feel they received a product or service contrary to what they were represented or what they expected. Sometimes businesses are at fault, sometimes, it’s miscommunication and sometimes it’s just a nasty customer who has too much expectation. However, if complaints are handled on time, with care and empathy, all situations can be taken care of smoothly and efficiently. Customer relationships are built and business grows.
Common Customer Complaints and how to handle them
Here are some common customer complaints that you may come across in your day-to-day operations and some pro-tips on how you can efficiently address them
- Not able to reach support
There have been so many times, that customers want to reach and contact you, but all you have is a form on your website or an email to reach you. Customers want to reach you on the channel of their choice. While it is difficult for a business to be always available, you can surely have multi-channel support. Make sure you are available for support across channels like Whatsapp/ Facebook/ Instagram/ Live Chat. Using an omnichannel tool like Mezchip you can also easily switch between these channels and keep the conversation going.
2. Long waiting periods
Customers generally get frustrated when they do not receive a response to their query immediately. Be it email/ chat/ call, customers hate to be kept on hold. To increase the response rate time, quick replies, self-help guides, and FAQs are a great way to help customers out on chat windows. A majority of times, customers can solve their queries with the guides themselves without needing to get on a call with a live agent.
3. Inconsistent support and customers repeating their issues
It often happens that when your brand has more than 2 support agents, they are often unaware of the context of a customer complaint or previous issues. Due to the unavailability of the context of customer issues, it often leads to customers getting frustrated and having them repeat their issues time and again with different agents.
In such situations, using a CRM tool such as Mezchip is very helpful. Your agent can get all the context they need on a customer, any previous tickets raised, orders placed, shipment, and delivery status. Giving consistent support in line with customer queries reflects brand consistency and helps establish trust with the brand.
4. An agent does not have the authority to resolve issues
Customers call customer service, explain their issue in detail, ask for a resolution but all they get to hear is “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused”. This often happens when a customer is dissatisfied with a product and wants to return or exchange a product that is not aligned with what the support agents have been instructed.
Collaboration with team members, assigning tickets to senior members who can better resolve such issues is what works best in such situations. Assuring the customers that the issue has been escalated to the concerned department and a resolution will be provided soon is a much better response than showing regret and providing no resolutions. Using the team collaboration feature of Mezchip helps you to easily assign tickets within your organization and escalate and resolve customer issues proactively.
5. No response to complaints on Social Media
Customers today spend most of their time on social media. It’s possible they discovered your brand/product via social media. If that’s the case, you’ll almost certainly get client complaints on social media as well. That is their primary source of information. It’s not ideal for your angry customers or potential consumers on social media if you can’t respond to DMs or have open complaints about social media posts.
Using Mezchip omnichannel tool can help you identify all your open complaints, DM’s across your social media channel as and when you get it and you can respond to them without needing to open your social media apps. Facebook also offers badges to businesses like “very responsive to messages” who have responded to 90% of messages within 15 minutes or the last 7 days.
Customer complaints are one of the four pillars of running and growing your business. Without customer feedback, there is no scope for improvement and growth. Converting a disgruntled customer into a happy customer is what makes a good business, a GREAT business. The opportunity of fixing customer relationships and providing service can help you delight your customers and make them your loyal customers. Listening to customer complaints and providing effective resolutions is a great way to make your business better and bigger.
