(Did you know? A complaint is a gift!)
I once founded and ran an agency providing digital communications service packages to corporate clients (B2B), and a social enterprise specializing in home healthcare services for individuals (B2C). Broadly speaking, what these 2 businesses have in common is that both provide SERVICES.
In services, handling customer complaints is an inevitable part of starting a business (and afterward), because things are not yet truly perfect. Moreover, there is a considerable difference between ‘not hearing complaints’ and ‘having no complaints.’ In many cases, you even need a mechanism for encourage customers to complain about us through different surveys and feedback mechanisms (to identify our weaknesses and correct them). Otherwise, complaints will continue quietly until they erupt and public opinion surrounds you, even though you had no idea of this risk beforehand.
Handling complaints well, however, is an art. Fortunately, much of it has been “systematized scientifically” to give us a “formula” (or, in martial arts fiction, a “guiding maxim”) for responding to customer complaints.
I often review and apply the formula “3 CHANGES” when 1 customer complains. Including:
1. REPLACE WITH NEW EMPLOYEES because the previous employee left a bad impression.
2. CHANGE LOCATION avoid having it at the front, where it could damage the company’s image (you can have customers meet the manager in 1 other place)
3. CHANGE THE TIME contact the customer. Act promptly, but if the situation is very bad, you can arrange a later meeting—for example, with management to offer a better solution compensating the customer for their loss. By then, the customer's anger has eased.
How you respond to a complaint alone is not enough; you need 1 The process for transforming that ‘complaint’ into some form of ‘value’ for the business. Because the goal of a new business is to keep “learning” until you find a business model that allows you to survive and grow.
The specific process for handling customer complaints that I often use the BLAST formula:
BELIEVE – first, choose to trust the customer and show sincerity so that the customer also trusts that you are willing to step forward and solve their problem.
LISTEN – build trust by listening. Be careful not to interrupt customers; let them finish, and do not let emotion take over. The person who speaks later is often better able to identify the problem and propose a solution. Let all the customer's anger “flow out”; do not “block” it. Everything is still under your control. But you need to show that you are listening, occasionally repeating points the customer has just shared to demonstrate your close attention.
APOLOGIZE – Emotion often precedes reason. You cannot talk about being right and the other person being wrong here, especially with someone who is “not rational” (being governed by emotion). Apologize first. Let the emotion pass, then take the next step in handling the matter. Right or wrong is not important; what matters is whether the customer still trusts your company in the end. Do not become 1 company that wins every argument with customers and ends up with no customers at all.
SATISFY – Now provide a solution to resolve the problem, compensate the customer or offer a gift. Do not view this as 1 expense; view it as 1 investment. You are INVESTING so the customer does not tell a few dozen others bad things about the business, spreading further and costing you sales opportunities with several hundred people in the future. If you handle it well, good fortune can arise from misfortune and opportunity from danger; you may even transform the customer into 1 “fan” who tells dozens of others about your company's “good reputation.”
THANKS – At this point, say thank you because the customer has informed you, helping you improve and the company develop better.
You are applying the principle well “Do not let the company and customers become 2 sides ‘fighting’ each other. Bring customers onto the company's side so both ‘fight’ the problem together.” – This is the golden rule for handling complaints in the service industry.
And as a saying goes, “funny but true, true but funny”: Give customers YOUR ALL, and they will spend ALL THEIR MONEY with you.
Congratulations!
Tạ Minh Tuấn – TMT – is a successful entrepreneur pioneering several startup fields in Vietnam, 1 of Vietnam's 30 most outstandingly successful and influential people in the prestigious “30 Under 30″ ranking by Forbes, the world's leading business magazine, and the founder of YUP! Start-Up Education & Incubation Centrer (www.yup.edu.vn).
