Turning Customer Complaints into Repeat Business

Turning Customer Complaints into Repeat Business

Small business owners must, at their core, want to satisfy their customers, if they are truly passionate about their business. “The Customer is always right,” may or may not be true, but I do believe that keeping an established customer is much easier than finding a new one. Keeping a customer happy is also a lot less stressful and time-consuming than undoing the damage that can be caused by one who is unhappy. Whatever way you look at it, customer loyalty is essential for business success.

Here are a few tips for triumphing through customer complaints:

1. Recognize them as opportunities for market research i.e. products’ features and benefits, customers’ psychographics, your company’s competitive advantage.

2. Listen to your customer without becoming defensive. Stay patient, hear your customer out and don’t try to solve it in this moment.

3. Acknowledge the customer’s emotions (anger, frustration, confusion) to reinforce that you are truly listening. Empathizing is kind, builds trust, and doesn’t imply your ownership of the problem (this can come later.)

4. Summarize the situation to ensure you have understood, and ask any questions you need for clarity.

5. Thank the customer for bringing the problem to your attention. This is NOT the time to state return/refund policies; the customer is asking for a unique solution. With sincerity, assure them that your company values their business and that you intend to rectify the situation.

6. If the solution is simple, propose it, outline steps, and ask if this will solve the problem for them. If the solution is more complicated, state a course of action toward resolution, time required, and when they can expect the process to begin.

7. It (almost) goes without saying…follow through with your promises.

It takes practice not to take a complaint personally, particularly in a very small business; but becoming insulted or otherwise hurt will not get you closer to a solution. How should you proceed depends largely on the nature of your business, as well as the severity of the customer's complaint. Negotiate fairness, both for the customer and you. Be polite but firm; you do not want to be taken advantage of any more than they do.

Often, customers will begin a complaint process expecting the worst, and you can come out of it looking like a hero if you go just a little above and beyond the call of duty. The result: a very loyal client.