Wisdom from ENS Media, compliments of Beverly at Harold's Auto:
10 Steps to Turn Unhappy Customers into Loyal Advocates
When you turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer, they are much more likely to spread positive word of mouth advertising for your business than they would be had they never been unhappy.
Golden Rule #1 is, “The customer is always right.”
Golden Rule #2 is, “When the customer is wrong, refer to rule #1.”
1. Listen, Listen, Listen. More often then not, a customer’s biggest complaint is “no one listens”. Learn to listen attentively and always demonstrate empathy. Empathy is defined as, “one’s capacity to participate in another’s thoughts or feelings”.
2. Learn. Bill Gates says, “Welcome your most unhappy customers, they can be your greatest source of learning.” When you do uncover a customer complaint, assume other customers have, or will have, a similar problem. Conduct a post-mortem with your staff and put systems into place to prevent that problem from occurring again.
3. Listen again. Often, a customer’s initial complaint is NOT their underlying complaint. Once they have vented and explained their problem, ask “Is there anything else?” Keep asking this question until all of the complaints are on the table.
4. Don’t become defensive. When you are passionate about your company and your service, it is easy to go on the defensive and refute every complaint. Sometimes we become defensive or argumentative in an effort to not give a refund or cost the company money. When you push back, it’s human nature for the complainant to push back even harder.
5. Listen again. Then listen some more. Once you have carefully and thoughtfully listened to the initial complaint, ask “Is there anything else?” This power phrase can be very disarming! Seldom is the initial complaint the real complaint, but rather it’s often the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. You’ll know when you have reached the real source of aggravation when the customer answers your “is there anything else?” with, “No.” At that point, they actually do an about face and start telling you about all the things they DO like about your company.
7. Break even is not enough. When you offer a refund, that’s only break even in your unhappy customer’s mind. Your break even solution doesn’t account for their time, aggravation, gas and other inconveniences they suffered in their attempt to do business with you. Rather than offering your proposed solution, ask the customer, “What can we do to make you happy?” If you have let them vent and shown empathy for their situation, they often propose a solution less costly than what you would have proposed.
8. Empower your staff. Make sure your staff understands they are empowered to compensate customers for errors up to a pre-determined limit, and that they are trained to do so quickly and cheerfully.
9. Show that management cares. During or after the complaint, management needs to personally acknowledge and apologize for the problem, preferably face to face, but at least by phone, email or letter.
10. Follow up. Plan a courtesy call 30 days after the problem is solved to ensure the customer is still happy. A follow-up call to ensure your solution turned your unhappy customer into a happy customer will remind them to generate more positive word of mouth for you.
A couple of final points…
1.) If your company has made an error, call the customer BEFORE she finds out. Waiting for them to contact you leaves them with the impression that you were hoping they wouldn’t notice the problem. When an angry customer calls you, the relationship is much more difficult to handle than when you notify them about the problem or error before they have discovered it.
2.) There are exceptions to every rule! There are customers who will try to take advantage of the liberal customer complaint policies we prescribed here. You need to know when to fire a customer. Firing should be extremely rare and only executed by management. And be aware that your fired customer will vehemently spread negative word of mouth about you and your company.
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