It is clear that what most companies want to avoid above all else is that their customers feel the urge to make complaints.
This is usually a sign that the person is well and truly fed up and possibly thinking of going elsewhere instead of dealing with you anymore. Therefore, the very best of dealing with this is to try and stop them having a complaint in the first place.
The good news is that there are some easy ways to deal with this that can stop your customers from making complaints in the first place. So what are the issues that you most need to avoid and how can you stop them from causing you problems in the future?
Getting Their Name Wrong
No-one likes seeing a company that they do business with get their name wrong on letters or other documents. Indeed, some people go absolutely crazy when this happens. To be honest, in most situations this is simply the result of a mistake that hasn’t been picked up.
It could be that it is wrong in the database or maybe the database is right but the staff member typing it out again has made a lazy mistake. In either case, this is something that can usually be fixed by paying a little more attention to the details.
By putting a quality control or checking process in place you can make sure that far fewer of these silly errors get out to cause anger and frustration for your clients.
Using the Wrong Address
Another issue that infuriates a lot of customers is when someone gets sent to the wrong address. This could be their physical address or their email address, as both really lead to the same sort of problems.
An easy way of dealing with this is to include an address lookup step in your processes. By simply making sure that the address is right, your team members will feel far more comfortable that everything they send out is spot on in terms of quality.
You should also look to keep tight control over returned letters and emails that come back as undelivered. Each one that doesn’t get to the intended destination should be looked into and sorted out.
Treating an Existing Client Poorly
Most people are of the opinion that being a paying client with you means they are deserving of a bit of extra care and attention. This is a fair expectation, as it is their business and the business from people like them that keeps your company going and in profit.
There are a few reasons why you might treat an existing customer less well than you would like to. For example, it may be that your team are under so much pressure to bring in new sales that they fail to take sufficient care of the existing customers on your books.
Another reason could be the person speaking to them is trying to sell them something without even being aware that they are dealing with an existing client. This is usually due to the database having duplicates on it, which is something that can be sorted out through regular address data cleansing that stops you from having a person down as both a lead and a paying client at the same time.
Getting an Order Wrong
Of course, there are many different ways of getting an order wrong and upsetting the client. This could be due to someone in the office misunderstanding what the client wants or the error being committed at some point from when the order is taken to when it is dispatched.
This is often a problem that arises from poor sales process being in place. If the process is too complicated or too many people have to play a part in it then this increases the risk of an issue occurring.
While getting in a sale is a fantastic moment, you will also want to avoid the temptation to rush it through and get paid as soon as humanly possible. Instead, you need a smooth and repeatable process that you can depend upon to keep the client happy time after time.
By sticking to these points you can go a long way towards having satisfied clients who keep coming back to you and who also spread the word in a positive way. You can’t expect to reduce the number of complaints to zero but with just a little bit of effort you should bring this number down considerably in very little time.