If you are a company or brand, you should admit that mistakes happen. You might be 99% perfect but still that 1% figure leaves enough space for lot of unhappy customers. So, resolving consumer complaints are important to succeed in business.
When you get a consumer complaint, you can either lose an angry customer or choose to hear him patiently, and get a brand advocate for life. Actually the companies should regard customer complaint as an opportunity. If an annoyed customer is successfully pacified then there are chances of building trust and long-term relationship with him.
It is not necessary that companies should invest a lot for resolving consumer complaints. Even very simple steps can make huge difference. Lets see how companies and brands can easily resolve consumer complaints:
1. When an upset customer tells his story, the companies needs to hear him with all ears. Anger can recede rapidly if someone listens to a customer’s grievance.
2. Empathize with the customer. Brands should understand the emotions of the customers, and let him know that his pain (grievance) is genuine.
3. Apologize sincerely. Customer does not always need compensation, instead they want an apology from someone who has authority in the company.
4. Act quickly to resolve the issue. The companies should allow their customer service teams to offer discounts, compensation and gifts etc to convert the unhappy customer into satisfied advocate.
5. Cure the problem. For becoming successful business, it is important to find out the real reason why that mistake occurred. Any faulty process should be removed or modified so that mistakes should not get repeated.
Finally, it may seem easier to let an angry customer go and focus on new customers. But successful businesses know the power of customer satisfaction to achieve better customer retention.