Customer feedback is a crucial aspect of every business. People often decide whether they want to engage with a brand after reading about customers’ experiences. They may look through comments and reviews or get the relevant information through word of mouth. Whatever the source is, potential customers will often choose to follow up with a company if they feel that the business takes care of its customers.
Of course, this makes correctly handling complaints a vital part of the customer service process. But that’s not the only reason why it matters.
Resolving grievances that customers have can lead to better retention. Satisfied clients are more likely to stay with a brand if you answer their questions correctly. In today’s market, it’s both easier and more cost-effective to retain existing customers than try to find new ones.
Whether you want to maintain a positive brand image, retain customers, or attract new prospects, handling online complaints to a customer’s satisfaction will become a cornerstone of your business. Here are six tips to help you tackle those complaints.
The first thing you should do is ensure that your company has well-defined procedures for addressing complaints. This includes guidelines for registering and responding to complaints efficiently. Ideally, your organization should also use a platform to monitor review sites and social media. Once you have a system to store all online complaints, you should designate a staff member who will respond to them within a specific timeframe.
Handling complaints should become another standard operation in your business. Effective customer service is just as important as sales or marketing and should have a clear operational outline and procedure.
While customer complaints might appear on different sites, negative feedback on social media is highly visible and permanent. In other words, it has a much larger impact on your reputation.
With the far-reaching effects of social media complaints, it’s vital to make handling them a priority. As mentioned in the previous tip, it’s best to formulate a clear strategy to resolve these complaints quickly.
You should first set up an alert system specifically for social media. On some platforms, such as Twitter, you can easily find complaints through regular searches.
Once you discover the complaints, the next step would be to determine the exact problem and prepare a solution. You can then engage the original poster in conversation and address their grievances.
Staying engaged online can be time-consuming. In fact, if you’re handling other business operations yourself, maintaining an online presence could prove nearly impossible. But, at the same time, you can’t afford to leave online complaints unattended.
The solution to this problem is relatively straightforward: You should hire a social media manager. However, there’s more to it than just hiring a tech-savvy person.
A social media manager will handle your brand's online presence while staying attuned to your core values. When your social media manager responds to a complaint, they should do so in the same voice you would use.
If you find a social media manager who can properly represent you online, they’ll become a worthy asset for your business. Even if there aren’t any complaints to address, they’ll improve your customer relations to a significant extent.
Your reply to a customer complaint shouldn’t appear weeks later. Ideally, you should be able to address the issue the same day the customer commented.
At the same time, responsiveness doesn’t equate to hastiness. Your reply must be helpful, carefully formulated, and aligned with your core values. To ensure that’s the case, you should first take your time and investigate the complaint.
Determine whether the issue brought up has any merit, and carefully craft how you'll respond. You can initiate the conversation once you’re confident in your reply.
Try to avoid leaving complaints unanswered for too long, especially when dealing with customers over the phone.
If dissatisfied customers cannot reach you by phone, your customer relations can plummet. Someone must be available to answer when a customer calls.
It might be worth considering a virtual phone system or voice over internet protocol (VoIP). Having a business phone that functions seamlessly online will make your customer service available 24/7. Even better, if you respond to phone complaints quickly and effectively, you’ll reduce the chances of unfavorable reviews appearing online.
When handling online complaints, you need to do so in a voice that reflects your brand's online personality.
Think of complaint handling as an extension of your marketing. You should align any message you send with your brand identity. This includes your choice of words, tone, and any specific “quirks” you regularly use to set your brand apart from others.
Over time, every reply to a review or comment will turn into an opportunity to build your brand image further. You’ll also leave a stronger impression compared to bland or uncoordinated responses.
There’s nothing wrong with having a private conversation to address a complaint. However, if the complaint is made public, you should respond in the same way.
Once a customer posts their grievances, the conversation affects your online image. Other people will read the review or comment, and they’ll be interested in your reply.
Over 30% of consumers base their buying decisions on how a brand replies to feedback. If there’s no public reply, you can imagine that the impression won’t be very favorable.
On the other hand, you can only take transparency so far. If you’re dealing with a severely disgruntled customer and can’t reach a common ground, a public conversation could harm your brand. It would be best to suggest continuing the conversation offline or through another channel.
Handling online complaints can be a challenge if you’re unprepared. By using a well-thought out approach, you can resolve any misunderstandings and help your customers overcome particular problems. Plus, a successful interaction might improve your brand image.
If you’re receiving phone complaints, we suggest setting up a VoIP service. Telephono offers a virtual phone service that might be just what your business needs. If you want to try it out, you can sign up for our free trial.
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