Owning a work form home business will inevitably lead to the
occasional customer complaint, regardless of the quality of your
product or service.It's something that can't be avoided.
Low-end customers pay little and expect the world, while high-end
customers pay a lot, but expect the impossible. You will never be
able to please everyone all of the time no matter what you do. Even
if you run yourself ragged trying — there will always be someone who
won’t be happy. So how do you deal with these
situations?
Don't Be Rude or
Flippant
The customer’s complaint might seem dumb to
you, or even insulting — but that doesn't mean you can respond in
kind. It’s essential that you treat every customer complaint
seriously, and act as if it’s 100% your fault.
Remember,
unhappy customers are more likely to talk about their experience to
other of your potential customers (research varies, but some say
that they might tell as many as 20).
Unfortunately, those potential customers will never hear your
side of the story, so taking care to keep unreasonable customers
happy is really a defensive technique to prevent them from damaging
your business. Don't be afraid of complaints, rather, you should
actively soliciting them, to give you a chance to straighten out the
situation to keep them satisified.
Write a Letter of
Apology
People do appreciate efforts you take when
write them a formal letter of apology, perhaps saying you're sorry
the product or service wasn’t to their satisfaction and you
appreciate they took the time to explain to you how you can improve.
Here’s an example:
“Dear Sir,
It’s
come to my attention that you weren't happy with the service you
received from my company in respect to the delivery of items to your
home. We have now contacted our delivery service and corrected the
issue, although I understand that this came too late to avoid
inconveniencing you.
I would like to sincerely apologize to
you for the bad experience you’ve had with my company, and hope this
will not harm our chances of doing business together again in the
future.”
Make sure you sign the letter yourself, in pen.
People hate seeing letters with printed
signatures.
Offer a Partial
Refund.
The closing part of your letter should offer
a refund of as much as you can afford to give — in this scenario,
for example, where there was a problem with delivery, you should
offer to refund the full cost of delivery, plus a little extra to
cover the inconvenience.
In this way, you can flip a
dissatisfied customers into one of your most satisfied ones. They
might tell everyone they know there was a small problem that wasn't
your fault, and they probably complained too harshly, but you
handled it courteously and sent them a refund.
Gaining a
reputation for responding quickly to complaints is some of the best
word-of-mouth marketing you will ever get. What’s more, that
customer you treated well is likely to return and do business with
you again.
Do Some Complaining
Yourself
Often when a customer complains, it wasn't
caused by you — it was some kind of problem with your supplier, or
someone else you rely on. Of course the customer doesn’t know this,
but you do, and you need to do something to straighten out the
situation so it doesn’t happen again. You could write them a letter
of complaint, such as:
“Dear Sir or
Madam,
Due to your service being unavailable this
week, I’ve received the attached customer complaints. I hope you’ll
understand that I’m very displeased, and I’m currently considering
alternative suppliers.”
Along with this letter, enclose a
copy of every customer complaint you received due to their failure
to deliver on time. Your supplier will often be eager to keep you on
as a customer and offer compensation to keep you satisfied which you
can pass on to your customers, or use to cover the cost of refunds
you’ve already paid out.
