In any business, you will always come across irate customers, displeased buyers, and the like. Sorry, but there's no way out. Experts will tell you that no matter how seemingly perfect your products and services are as well as the other aspects of your business, some people will still find little things to complain about. Hence, you need to live with it.
Of course your ecommerce website will not survive without customers. And you can't just ignore the complaining ones, either, because they are bound to bad-mouth you one way or another. The problems may eventually leak and ruin your reputation, causing your existing consumers to drop out or troop over to the competitors.
In order to avoid such a scary scenario, you must know how to handle your customer complaints the right way. Here are some tips that might come in handy:
1. Respond politely and promptly.
No matter how much a customer bashes your business and hurls disrespectful words at you, don't stoop down to his or her level. Remember the old adage "The customer is always right"? Well, it still applies even in today's modern world.
Think of every complaint, regardless of how it was expressed, as a blessing in disguise. It's an opportunity for you to notice some details you may have overlooked. It's a chance for you to improve and to show customers that you truly care.
Each time you receive a complaint, don't give in to the temptation to ignore. Instead, come up with a polite response as soon as you can then get to work resolving the issue.
2. Apologize and resolve the concern.
Let's say somebody posts a negative feedback on your Facebook page. Rather than panicking and deleting it, or perhaps sending a private message without posting any response for everyone to see, you ought to apologize and show that you care. The same goes for calls, live chats, and other means.
You can say something like, "We are terribly sorry to hear about this bad experience. We understand how it must have made you feel. Please be assured that we are on it at the moment. We have sent you a private message to discuss the issue further and provide potential resolutions."
Take note that a mere response or apology will not do the trick. You really have to get to a resolution, no matter how difficult, costly, or time-consuming.
3. Never delete posted complaints.
When you delete a complaint that was posted on social media or in a forum discussion, what kind of message do you think are you sending to people who see and know? What are you conveying to the complainant?
If it were the other way around, you'd probably be ticked off. It's like the company's just brushing you away and doesn't even care how you feel or what your experience was. Naturally, the next thing you would want to do is to rattle it off to friends or post it on your own social network accounts. Heck, you might even blog about it.
So you see deleting is not going to erase that complaint. More often than not, it's a sure way of fanning the flames and putting your business in danger. It's against the principles of good customer service and will only bring in trouble for you.
4. Explain when transferring calls.
Have you ever called a customer service number and felt like you wanted to blow up because you kept on getting transferred from one person to another? Surely you don't want your own customers to feel this way.
Well, here's what you can do... you ought to explain that a specialist or the person in charge of the concern will be the one to handle the call so that the concern can be better addressed and resolved faster too. As a result, the caller will feel that this is necessary and it's being done for him or her.
As much as possible, though, you ought to limit transferring of calls. The same applies for tickets, emails, private messages, and other forms of communication.
5. Use excellent customer support tools.
3dcart knows how nerve-wracking it can be to handle customer complaints. This is why we aim to equip our online retailers with customer support tools that can make things a little bit easier. For instance, you can utilize our efficient Customer Relationship Manager to assist in sorting problems and concerns, monitoring progress, and hastening the resolutions.
We also offer several different apps that you can have installed in your website such as live chat. Such tools will make people feel that you're willing to listen and that you are always available to attend to their needs.
Having superb customer service is a great way of marketing your brand and company, and keeping customers happy.
