Very often it is technical support service or call centers which have to deal with disappointed customers. If promises are not fulfilled and service is not provided in a proper way, then customers have the full right to complain. In this way, the management of a company should think about the reasons of such problems or optimize business processes in order to speed up the provision of services. However, very often it happens that customers are too rude to company representatives and can even threaten.
Rule #1
Take into account the fact that the reason of the customer complaint is a problem of a company, but not your personal. Try to control yourself and not to take it personally. Take care about your emotional condition. Don’t get nervous, at least, because the real reason of the problem might be non-optimized business processes or technical bugs, but not you personally.
Rule #2
If complaints of a customer are relevant and the company is really guilty for the problem, you need to make excuses. And it’s better to make it straight away in spite of that you can hear the reply “I don’t need your excuses!”
Some employees have a co-called psychological barrier when it comes to excuses. Very often people think that excuse means humiliation. It’s not true. You excuse for the company. It’s not your fault that, for example, logistics service of your company needs a business process optimization, or that the cable which is broken, or that a manager didn’t solve the problem of a customer straight away. You are responsible for informing a customer about the situation.
Rule #3
Fulfill promises and don’t make customers wait. If you promised to call back to a customer within some period of time, fulfill this promise even if you don’t have anything new for a customer. It is clear that you cannot do anything if non-optimized business processes of shipment or online payments don’t allow providing a service in a proper way. At least, you can show some thought for your customers and make them understand that you take up an issue.
Rule #4
Never say “I don’t know” to a customer. Saying this, you put the competence of your company at stake. You always have the chance to consult your colleagues, your chief or employees of other departments. Take a pause, ask your client to wait for a minute (not more) or call him back in some time when you will find out the answer to his question.
Actually, there are a lot of other cases of customer complaints. And there is a wide range of typical complaints of customers. The task of an employee is to be able to work with complaints and conflict situations. However, it is quite difficult for employees, if a company they work for needs business process optimization or other improvements of organizational system in order to avoid problems with customers.