Dealing with customer complaints is very challenging, but there is no getting around it. You have to deal with it at some point. However, the key to tackling such complaints lies in customer engagement. This not only transforms the problems into opportunities but also bolsters the customer relationship and provides valuable insights to improve your customer experience.
Implementing a proper procedure for handling customer complaints is important for addressing and mitigating negative comments and reviews.
Beyond mending customer relationships, it also plays a crucial role in customer relationship management and in converting complaints into repeated business.
In this blog, we will delve into the importance of customer feedback, explore effective ways to handle customer complaints and discuss the strategies for turning customer complaints into business opportunities.
Importance of customer feedback For your business
Customer feedback is very crucial for any business. Customers share their viewpoints on your business and how they feel about the product. You will get to know what services you can offer and which areas need improvement in your business.
Customer feedback is helpful in identifying dissatisfied customers. which helps businesses address problems and build relationships.
According to American Express, “Millennials are willing to spend the most 21% more for excellent customer care”. When you resolve customer issues, it will boost customer satisfaction and, hence, customer loyalty.
You can say that customer feedback is a tool that helps in understanding customer expectations. so that it can provide a more customized experience to its customers.
Companies Leveraging Customer Feedback
You might think that feedback goes unnoticed, but that’s not the case. Today, the world is leveraging the power of customer feedback to build better products, develop good relationships, improve customer loyalty, and achieve long-term success.
Here are some examples of companies that leveraged customer feedback to grow their business.
Udemy
Udemy cracked the code to customize its marketing strategy.
How did they do it?
They asked a simple question: “How did you come to find out about Udemy?” By tapping into customer insights through surveys, Udemy could find out which advertising channel yielded the best results.
This strategy allowed Udemy to spend funds exactly where they were needed the most. They weren’t just splurging the money on marketing. However, they were more focused on the requirements of the individual customer.
They didn’t stop here; they also used customer feedback to see how their auto-captioning feature was working. They used metrics like customer satisfaction and rating surveys, which enabled them to understand if they needed to improve auto-captioning.
For them, it’s not only about offering courses but also about understanding their learners and their needs.
Uber
Uber’s success is not hard to guess. The company uses the mantra “Feedback Is A Two-Way Street”. It emphasizes how important it is to have feedback on both sides.
Uber says, “Real-time feedback about drivers means Uber can correct for issues, big and small while ensuring that only the best drivers stay on the road. We take this feedback seriously; depending on the circumstances, rider feedback may lead to deactivating a partner from the system or serve as validation that the driver is providing great service.”
How does Uber do it?
By conducting a surveyWhen the journey is completed, a survey pops up in the app where both the customer and the driver rate their experiences. This mechanism ensures a complete evaluation of the ride-sharing experience for both parties involved.
Salesforce
Ideal Exchange is a suggestion idea created by Salesforce where customers can add their suggestions for new features. After submission, customers can cast their votes for which features they want the company to include.
The ideas that manage to get 650 votes, or 2500 points, will be reviewed by their product development team. Not only that, salesforce makes it a point that their customers feel valued upon their ideas being selected.
By involving their customers in the feedback, they created and introduced features that worked for the customer’s specific needs.
Starbucks
Starbucks did it too. If you remember, Starbucks had a Net Promoting score of 77.
How did Starbucks improve its NPS?
The website had the goal of enhancing customer engagement. For that, they provided a platform for customers to tell the company what they wanted to improve.
By 2013, Starbucks had incorporated 275 customer ideas for improving their products, services, and customer experience. And in February 2022, their Net Promoter Score stood at 39, which is quite impressive.
Site ground
Site Ground is a web hosting company that utilizes live chat, helpdesk, and phone support for their customers to give their feedback about their company.
After the customer finishes their interaction with the representative, they tell customers to rate their experience. Thereafter, they ask customers some open-ended questions about their experience with the company and also some feedback.
They take it one step further by posting those reviews on Yelp so that other customers can also see them.
Importance of customer complaints
We know that customer complaints are not music to our ears, but they give you a good opportunity to improve your products and services and build the reputation of the company.
Let’s check out some amazing reasons why it is important to pay attention to customer complaints.
It helps in understanding the customer better
Understanding your customer needs should be the main aim of your business. The in-depth knowledge about your customer needs is directly related to your sales and marketing efforts. It serves you two purposes. First, it provides you the valuable insights into your products and services. Second, it provides you with the tools that help you customize your offerings as per the customer needs.
Once you have drawn this knowledge it will help you attract existing and potential customers towards your products and services.
But why is understanding your customer important?
- You can get an idea of who they are and what they think about your brand and product, and this way you can organize your approach to meet their specific needs.
- Understanding their psychology can help you make improvements to your products and services.
- The easier the path you create for your customers, the more chances there are that they will stick to your brand.
Get Direct Insight About Your Product and Services
When a customer doesn’t like your product, they are not going to come to you and tell you that; instead, they will tell their family and friends not to buy the product or service from your company. So, it’s important to ask your customers for feedback to improve your products and keep them coming back again.
How can it help you?
- Your brand credibility improves when you provide close to what your customers want from your products and services.
- Bad experience feedback gives you a chance to improve your product and improve its sales.
- Your customers feel valued. If you act on the feedback of your customers, improve your products and services, and acknowledge their feedback,
- A study by Forbes says that “personal recommendations are the top motivation for purchase decisions,” and they mostly spread through word of mouth through family and friends.
Takes care of your online reputation
According to Global Newswire, “95% of customers read online reviews before buying a product.” That’s why it is important to pay attention to online reviews because what customers think and say about your product matters.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean that you focus on removing negative reviews and complaints from different social media channels. Rather, it is an effort you put towards improving your products and services.
How can you manage your online reputation?
- Give a quick response to customer complaints.
- Respond politely when the customers seem frustrated.
- Apologize when required; this will help gain one loyal customer.
- Try to gain insights from the feedback and complaints.
Have you ever wondered why customers complain?
Reasons may vary; maybe the customer is not able to exactly articulate what he wants, even though your products and services are the exact match for their requirements. In such situations, if your customer support team doesn’t have the proper skill set or insufficient tools, It can contribute to misunderstandings and leave customers frustrated.
What can be done in such situations?
Implement the following tools:
- Live Chat: You can boost customer satisfaction by implementing live chat and providing quick assistance for sales- or support-related problems. And make sure your support agents are properly trained to handle all the situations.
- Realtime Tools for Instant Engagement: You can install real-time engagement tools like video chat to engage with the customer and understand their problems faster.
- Chatbots: Add chatbots to automate your support and sales so that you can provide assistance to your customers 24×7.
Improve customer communication
According to HubSpot, “93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service.” Usually, customers move away from your brand when they encounter an untrained support agent or rude behaviour from them.
This is the perfect time to improve your business. When customers see that you are listening to them and considering their feedback, they feel valued, and chances are they will come back for their next purchase.
What are the positive ways to resolve customer issues?
- Listen to Customers: Listen to what the customer wants to say, identify the reasons, and give quick responses.
- Provide an efficient solution. Try to find an effective solution before transferring calls to senior managers.
- Follow up with customers: To ensure that your customers are happy with the resolution, always follow up with them after providing the solution.
- Meet your customer’s expectations: Always try to meet your customer’s expectations. A simple thank you or early access to some new features will add to it.
- Apologize to your customer: Apologize to your customers when there is a delay in responding to complaints.
How To Handle Customer Complaints
Having a proper system in place will always help you and your support team for managing negative reviews and comments. So far, you have learned the importance of customer complaints. Now let us see how you can handle customer complaints.
Make it simple for customers to complain.
The more you get customer reviews, the more you get an opportunity to improve your business. Hence, it is pertinent for your company to make it accessible for customers to complain.
Having employees always at the back and call of your customers, a suggestion box at the shopping store, or a simple suggestion page on your website will certainly make a difference.
Understanding customer complaints
Understanding customer complaints is the first step in handling their issues, improving your relationship with them, and finally improving your business. So, the first thing to do is to listen to them patiently and carefully understand their concerns.
Acknowledge the issue, apologize for the inconvenience and show empathy following that. At this stage, your customer will feel that you care for their problems and are eager to provide the solution.
Respond to the customer’s emotions
Customers who make complaints are often full of negative emotions; sometimes the reason for the complaint is not related to your products and services but maybe to the way they were being treated.
In such situations, you can calm them down by listening to their problems attentively and apologizing for the inconvenience they had to face.
You can go one step further by employing new features or providing training to your employees.
Find Solution
There would be times when a customer would say a lot of things in rage, and at that moment, it would be more important for you to stay level-headed and focus on finding a solution rather than getting upset about what the customer said.
By focusing more on finding solutions, you will be able to create a positive experience for both the customer and the company.
Ensure to follow up on all complaints.
You might never want to see tough complaints, but that is the time of opportunity when you can build a good relationship with the customer.
Follow up with the customer to ask about their experiences with the company and ask for feedback on the improvement of the product or service and whether they like the way the company handled their problem.
Who knows, you might have changed the mind of the customer who was going to spread negative reviews on social media.
Following up gives you a chance to mend relationships with angry customers, and at the same time, you get feedback on how you can improve your products and services.
Strategies for turning complaints into opportunities
Every mistake is a great opportunity to learn, and that holds true when it comes to handling customer complaints. Below are the 5 tips that will help you turn these complaints into business opportunities.
View complaints as feedback.
Receiving complaints and negative reviews might break your heart, but taking complaints as feedback goes a long way. Rather than viewing complaints negatively, start taking them as an opportunity to make improvements in your products and services and a way to make better relationships with the customers who made the complaints.
Convert complaints into repeat business.
Instead of fretting about the complaints, convert these negative remarks into profitable repeat business. There are many companies that use these complaints as feedback and use them to improve their sales funnel, which leads to an improved customer experience and further leads to repeat business.
Gaining valuable insight
You can gain valuable insight from customer complaints and negative reviews. This will help you understand the loopholes in your products and services. Improving your products will help you improve your business.
Recognizing patterns and trends from feedback
Recognizing patterns and trends from customer feedback is a tactic that involves identifying key metrics such as repeated issues, sentiments, and preferences of the customers. By utilizing these metrics, your company can identify patterns and trends, which will help in gaining valuable insights for the improvement of the business.
Convert complaints into ideas for developing new products and services
When you have talked to the customers and recognized the patterns and trends from the feedback, now it is time to make changes in your products and services as per the demand of your customers. Not only that, you can also get ideas from the feedback to launch a new product or service.
Final Thoughts
Customer complaints can provide you with ideas to improve your business. It can also give you the opportunity to mend or build relationships with your customers. At the same time, analysing the feedback of the customers gives you a chance to make changes to your current products and services and provides you with the possibility to launch a new product on the basis of those feedback.
