What is the best thing your customers can do for you?

What is the best thing your customers can do for you?

This is an interesting question and one that will get a number of different responses when asked of any group of sales people.

“Come back over and over again”, or “Recommend you to a friend”, or “Pay on time”. In fact statically the best thing your customer can do for you is:

Complain!

Let me explain.

96% of dissatisfied customers do not complain, they just do not come back. Of the 4% who are prepared to complain, between 50% and 74% will return if you solve their problem for them in a reasonable amount of time but.... If you solve their problem straight away 97% of them will come back.

What these figures mean is that a when a customer complains this is an opportunity to almost guarantee that they will come back to your business if your solve their problem straight away.

The psychology for this is very simple. Customers do not expect you to get it right all the time. We are all human and we make mistakes. The real issue with a customer is not whether you make a mistake or not, it is whether you fix it straight away. If you are able to do that then the customer will be confident to come back to your business knowing that when problems occur in the future they will be solved straight away.

How do you handle complaints in your business?

In most businesses this is a problem because they do not have systems set up to handle complaints straight away, thereby creating further problems. When you are looking at your company and the way you handle complaints consider the following:

1. The sun never sets on a customer complaint When a customer rings in with a problem make sure that the solution is communicated to the customer if not immediately, then before the end of the day. A minor problem one day can develop into a major issue in the mind of the customer if he has to go home without a solution.

2. The person who takes the call is responsible for the complaint The customer does not want to have to tell 20 people the same story. The first person the customer tells the complaint to is now responsible. They may not have caused the problem in the first place and they may not be able to fix it but they tell the customer to leave it with them and they will find the right people to solve the problem.

3. Keep the customer fully informed You may be working like a beaver in the background solving the problem but if you do not tell the customer what is happening he will believe that nothing is happening. As soon as the solution is identified, ring the customer back and tell them how the problem will be solved.

4. Listen carefully to the customer Often when a customer is irate he just wants someone to listen. If you are able to listen carefully and demonstrate that you have listened he will be much less irate and ready to listen to your solution.

5. Empathise with your customer A simple technique to defuse an irate customer is to empathise with him. If you say “You know Mr Customer, if I was in your position I would feel exactly the same as you do”. This will take the sting out of the conversation and let you start the process of fixing the problem.

6. Do not over promise and under deliver This is a very common mistake with complaint handling. If you tell your customer you will get back to him in 5 minutes and it takes 20 you have now got an even more irate customer. If you tell him that you will get back to him in 30 minutes and it takes only 20, he will be much happier.

7. Make sure it is easy to complain in your company If you never get complaints Watch Out! In many companies it is very difficult to complain and because of that the company gets very few complaints. Dissatisfied customers who can not complain will not come back and you will never know if they had a problem or not.

8. Get back to the customer When the problem is solved the person who first took the complaint must get back to the customer to make sure he is now happy. This is usually a fun conversation to have if you have handled the complaint properly, but is also a final opportunity to make sure the customer is happy.

You must treat complaints as urgent opportunities to secure a customer for life and in that way the customers will come back over and over again.



What is the best thing your customers can do for you? - To learn more about this author, visit Richard Mulvey's Website.

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