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It doesn’t matter how good or how loved you may be. It doesn’t matter how wonderful your product or service may be. It doesn’t matter how perfect your business location may be. Sooner or later in your glory march to victory, you will receive a complaint from a client. Your response to that complaint, which no doubt will come as a huge surprise, maybe, will help determine your operation’s ability to retain and grow the valuable relationship virtually each client has the potential to provide. Here are a few more simple suggestions to keep in the forefront regarding complaints:
7. When you reach a conclusion that denies the client’s request, explain the situation fully. Saying no but providing a full explanation of denial is as important as saying yes. Where you cannot provide what the client seeks but can provide an alternative, do so. Sometimes options prove to be more impactful than the original request. At all costs, avoid saying, “We don’t do that…or That’s going to take too much work….”
8. At final conclusion, send the client a “hand-written” note again thanking them for the opportunity to address the issue. While not all complaints can be resolved to the client’s complete satisfaction, your professional approach will have an impactful effect.
After you have completed the process, there is some work yet to do. Don’t “high five” yourself for satisfying the client. You need to “debrief” the process and examine the following:
- What clearly caused the situation to occur?
- What process or content should be examined to prevent this from happening again?
- What other aspects of our business should we examine to prevent related issues from arising?
- What grade would we give ourselves on how we handled this interaction and why? What did we say or do that worked? What did we say or do that did not work?
- What was the most beneficial learning gained from this interaction and why?
Next time, we will look at further considerations for making good use of a complaint.
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