Strategies to reduce customer complaints
Being able to contain customer complaints in business is very important for business growth. Although sometimes, it is inevitable to totally control customer complaints. But if growth is important to you as an employer or business owner, then taking steps that will reduce customer complaint to barest minimum is very important. In this regards, below are some of the effective strategies to reducing customer complaints and increasing customer satisfaction:
The need for complaints should be looked into and dealt with
Prevention is better than cure. This saying also applies to businesses, and remains the best way to deal with the cost of handling grievances. In this regard, it is important to send your employees who face and deal with customers, on customer services courses.
Your customer service employees are the bedrock of your business; it may be costly to such courses in the short term but the long term gains of a well trained workforce will pay off handsomely in the end. There are many training institutes that can offer training in vast areas of customer services. Going for this is important in order to comply remove the need for complaints.
Internal communication should be improved
Effective communication is important between the employer and employees. When you communicate often and thoroughly with your employees in all departments, it will help catch problems and create solutions even before your customers have the chance of noticing and raising complaints. That's the beauty robust internal communication in an organization.
It was reported sometime ago that Facebook founder is reputed with catching errors before users do. So it's important to take initiative to improve internal communication among your employees.
Promise and fail is bad; don't make promises you won't honour
Sometimes in a bid to make sales, business owners make promises they can't keep. This is bad and gives room to complaints and loss of trust by your customers. Don't exaggerate offers because if your company fail to deliver on a promise, it will result in a loss of loyalty and you will definitely lose trust of your customers. Make sure you follow through with any promise you consciously made. This is very important in order not to give your customers more ammunition to complain.
log customer complaints to keep track of them
Every complaint your company receive should have a case file and possible solutions to ensure such a complaint doesn't arise again. This will make every employee to be aware of such a case and its possible solution, and therefore act in a manner that will not bring up such an issues in the future.
Create a communication channel
Social media has been found to be effective when it comes to reaching a wider audience in order to deal with any issues. Many people use social media and so is most of your customers. Monitoring interaction between your business and customers on social media can actually help to spot problems even before the escalate into complaints. You can use social media based polls like Twitter polls to gain feed very quickly and seamlessly too.
Incessant customer complaints aren't healthy for any business entity because it can elevate negative image about such a business. In such a situation, other customers who are yet to have any dealings with the business would avoid it at all cost. This negative customer perception can lead to untimely closure of the business. Take these steps to reduce customer complaints to barest minimum.
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