Let’s play a game of word association. If I said: ‘Customer complaints!’, what would you say? Any of the following?
When faced with a customer complaint, how do you react? Do you:
The reason I ask these questions is that how we think about customers and customer complaints is key to how we react to them. And, what happens and how we react when first faced with a customer complaint is hugely important in creating the lasting impression that we make on the customer.
In reality, all a customer complaint really is is a statement of how someone has been let down and how something or other has not met their expectations. Right?
But, it is also an opportunity for a business to respond, to listen, to show they care and to solve a problem.
Seen like this, when a customer complains to a business it’s like giving the business a gift (sometimes it can look and feel like it is in disguise, I admit) but it is up to the business to decide how and if it wants to carefully open this gift to see what’s inside.
Because complaining customers are still customers… and customers who take time to complain still have some confidence in the business. In most cases, it is less of a hassle just to take their business to the competition, so those who do complain are showing some degree of loyalty.
At a seminar that I ran for Wellers Accountants the other day on handling customer complaints called ‘Delight from Disatisfaction’, I learnt a really simple way of handling complaints from Mark Blackmore of Lammore. Here it is:
So, when faced with a complaint try using the LEAD method. It works really well.
I hope you find this method helpful. However, I’m always interested in learning more, simple ways of handling complaints. What methods do you use?
Thanks to penywise for the photo
5 Comments
Customer complaints are key to customer retention @ http://bit.ly/dg2JD9
RT @adrianswinscoe: love your Customer complaints. Key to customer retention @ http://bit.ly/dg2JD9
customer feedback: hoe je klachten van klanten inzet voor retentie http://bit.ly/cBGC0p
RT @keeswolters: customer feedback: hoe je klachten van klanten inzet voor retentie http://bit.ly/cBGC0p
RT @keeswolters: customer feedback: hoe je klachten van klanten inzet voor retentie http://bit.ly/cBGC0p