The professional website CustomerThink, which focuses on customer service, presents three steps that will help you significantly lower the number of angry customers with your company.
Step 1: Keeping it simple
Accept responsibility. If a customer has a problem, the last thing you should do is force them to go through a complex and time-consuming procedure, or ask them to contact you at another time or to contact someone else. If there is a problem, you must be able to handle it quickly and without any further action on the part of the customer.
Step 2: Sufficient authority of employees
Customer service representatives who are in the “front line” must not be a mere shield with no proper authority. If a client contacts you with a problem to be handled, and is using contact information from your website or other materials, it goes without saying that the given employee really should be able to do something about the problem. If they do not have enough authority to change anything in the system, you will continue to encounter angry customers regularly in the future.
Step 3: Proactive vs. reactive attitude
Most systems of customer service work in a reactive mode, which means handling a problem once it appears and after a client has provided an impulse. The best client services, however, are able to anticipate problems before they even occur, and take preventive measures to avoid them. Define the warning signals of your customers and intervene before the issue escalates and reaches a critical level.
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