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Discuss this article (0 Comments)“Your phone call is important to us….please hold the line.”
by Karen Storey on Tuesday, 01 May 2007
Whenever I ask disgruntled customers about their customer service experiences, they normally complain "it is so difficult to get through to the right person to complain to!"
The fact is however, that many of your unhappy customers simply don't bother to complain. They either give up, totally frustrated at having already repeated their complaint three of four times to various disinterested people, or simply go elsewhere.
If you are very lucky, your dissatisfied customers will put it down to a bad experience and decide not to use you again, while others will tell their friends and colleagues and anyone else who will listen.
How many people they then tell depends on which study you refer to, but figures of up to 20 have been stated.
Recent research reveals the people they do tell are five times less likely to come to your business than the original dissatisfied customer.
But what about Mr Persistent? He has worked his way through your automated telephone menu, pressed two for English, three for sales, four for customer service and so on, eventually getting through to someone he could not understand, and repeated his complaint to two people who weren't empowered to take action.
When he did eventually get to talk to someone who appeared to be the ‘right' person, he is now somewhat angry and frustrated, as opposed to being slightly disgruntled.
This is only the beginning of the story; not getting to grips with complaints quickly has a direct and significant impact on your bottom line, customer loyalty, professional credibility and chips away at the brand image many of you no doubt spend millions to create and protect.
Businesses large and small should treat customer complaints like the best sales lead they have ever had They present a major opportunity to prove your worth, so treat them like gold!
Your organisation should generate the same passion and commitment to the development of a service recovery team as it does for front-of-house and sales and marketing teams.
Companies that get service recovery right invest and recognise the impact of a poorly executed service recovery strategy. They are companies operating dedicated, well-communicated and transparent customer care lines.
They boast customer care teams that are responsive, empowered, and trained in essential listening, empathy and conflict management techniques.
They track, monitor and review high-value, high-risk clients well beyond the initial complaint resolution. It is during this phase of re-engagement that your competition will do it's best to ‘wow' them with the promise of a better, faster, and more responsive service.
Why is this investment so vital? Well, you may want to first of all consider the money you spend on lavish marketing campaigns aimed at client acquisition. You may then want to calculate how much are you really investing and identify who is responsible for resolving the fall-out at the other end.
I was having a coffee with a friend recently and told her that I needed to get home to write this article.
When I revealed the subject she took great delight in explaining the service recovery strategy of an established Middle East hotel brand.
She had invited some US clients to a Thanksgiving dinner that transpired to be less than impressive. The dinner was a disaster - bad service, cold food and spilt drinks, compounded by an inaccurate bill.
This friend rightfully verbally complained on the day, and followed this up in writing to the GM the following day.
What followed was an example of how this brand not only recovered the situation, but actually delighted my friend, demonstrating how service recovery should, and can work to your advantage.
While sitting in her office a week later, she received a telephone call from reception to say there were some people waiting to see her from the hotel in question.
Intrigued, she walked down to reception and was greeted by the GM of the hotel, together with a line of smiling hotel staff, some of whom she recognised from her earlier disaster.
They brought with them what turned out to be a re-run of the Thanksgiving dinner. They laid this out and served it to herself and her colleagues. Happily, round two was excellent. As a result of its first-class service recovery actions, this particular hotel now stands to secure my friend's sizeable corporate hospitality business for this year.
Having recited this story several times to friends, she has no doubt also encouraged others to trust in a brand that follows through with its commitment to customers.
Having an effective service recovery strategy in place means you are still in control and more importantly, still in contact with your customer.
If your customer cares enough to complain, you need to view this as a lifeline and treat it as an opportunity and invitation to send in your best service recovery team.
Yes, customers can be demanding at times, but they are within their rights to be so.
We need to recognise that customers are also human beings, and as such, are realistic. I am sure we all recognise that in a highly people-orientated business, things can and do go wrong. However, whether your customer chooses to invest in this relationship further, will be down to how you handle them when those very things do go wrong.
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