A few months back I ordered a custom 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. The order finally arrived after 2 weeks.
When I received the order, I found the color of the base of the nameplate entirely different from what I had ordered.
Needless to say, it was upsetting. 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.
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.
That is how 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 out 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.
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 great way to help.
A majority of times, customers can solve their queries with the guides themselves without needing to get on a call with a live agent.
Inconsistent support and customers repeating their issues
It often happens that your brand has a number of support agents but is unaware of the context of a customer complaint.
The unavailability of the context of customer issues 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 and orders placed.
Giving consistent support in line with customer queries reflects brand consistency and helps establish trust with the brand.
An agent does not have the authority to resolve issues
Customers call customer service, explain their issues in detail, and ask for a resolution. But usually, customer care responds with “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused, but there is nothing we can do about it”.
This happens when a customer is dissatisfied with a product and wants a product returned or exchanged. However, that is not aligned with what the support agents have been instructed.
Assigning tickets using tools like Mezchip to senior members who can better resolve such issues works best in such situations.
Assuring the customers the issue has been escalated for a quick resolution is a better approach than providing no resolutions.
Using the team collaboration feature of Mezchip helps you to easily assign tickets within your organization and resolve customer issues proactively.
No response to customer complaints on Social Media
Customers today spend most of their time on social media.
They discover your brand/product via social media. If that’s the case, you’ll almost certainly get client complaints on social media as well.
It’s not ideal for your angry customers on social media if you have open complaints on social media posts.
Using Mezchip omnichannel tool can help you identify all your open complaints across your social media channels. You can respond to and resolve complaints without needing to open your social media apps.
Did you know – 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 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.
