They call him the king of every business, and sometimes, they say he is always right, and hence, when he raises issues you should lie low like an envelope and apologize. What is his name? The customer. Taking care of this person in any business means taking care of your business, your own self, your suppliers, and workers.
Deadly Customer Care Sins to Avoid
That is why you should be careful how you handle this critical person in your business. With this in mind, our customer service experts at 10PagePapers have compiled fatal blunders you should avoid when handling your customers. Read on to learn how to avoid these mistakes and make lasting friendship with your business’s lifeline.
1) Poor Follow-up
Have you ever called or emailed a company presenting the challenges you had with their products or services and they said they had “escalated” the matter to the concerned team yet nobody ever followed it? How did you feel when the 24 hours they promised to get back to you elapsed without any remedy coming forth?
If you have ever faced this situation, you have a very strong point of reference to learn from. When a customer calls or emails you complaining, be prompt to follow up the matter until it is resolved.
In fact, it is courtesy to follow them to find out if they were satisfied with the help they received. If you cannot handle your clients this way, be sure the person who takes care of the customer wins the battle for their money and loyalty. Therefore, it is to your advantage to follow up on all issues that made a customer take their time to inquire, complain, or report a challenge.
2) Trashing Customer’s Feelings
Even though you are dealing with a rational clientele, never sweep your customer’s feelings under the carpet. Instead, be sensitive to understand why the customer feels the way they do. Also, remember that customers will perceive your business based on how they feel more than how you try to convince or reason with them. If your client feels angry, shortchanged, or taken for granted, investigate what made them feel that way.
Never try to engage your rationale without first mollifying raging emotions since the same way you market your products to make them feel “cool” or “great,” the same emotions can make them ditch you for a competitor.
Just ask and answer yourself this question: Do customers make impulsive buying decisions? Yes they do. And if they can join your fold based on how you made them feel in the advert, they can also ditch you on the same principle. If you are wise, you should know that if a customer calls, emails, or walks into your offices angry, they don’t intend to leave. Instead, they are only showing you the yellow card.
What is wisdom? Engage them at that level first, before engaging your logical explanations. Remember, it is easier and cheaper apologizing to a client than securing a new one.
3) A Rigid and Unfriendly Return or Exchange Policy
Returns and exchanges are some of the challenges you will handle when serving your clients. If you have a rigid system that sticks to the traditional “goods once sold will not be returned or exchanged” script, then you will not survive in the current dispensation.
The reason is that sometimes customers can make decisions on impulse and end up buying something only to discover they got the wrong one. For instance, it is possible for person to buy an item only to reach home and their friends or family start commenting negatively on the color. If they bring back the pair of shoes while still intact, just exchange it for them without complicating matters.
Additionally, if customers return faulty products, you should attend to it maturely. If they have a genuine complaint, take responsibility. If you deal in services and the customer wants to change the subscription plan, it is necessary to provide for that.
4) Using Slang or Jargon
Do you want to alienate yourself from your customers? Then try using a language they don’t understand or are uneasy with. Remember, you are here to serve your customers, and it is necessary to come to their level and address their needs in a language they understand.
You should only use jargon if you are dealing with a specialist clientele such as doctors or engineers. Also, avoid using slang when addressing your customers.
5) Not Taking Responsibility
Will you make mistakes in business? Yes. The big difference comes in how you handle your mistakes. If, for example, a buyer ordered for a blue shirt size XL, and then you packed a blue shirt size XXL, whose fault is that? When a buyer returns such an item, you should take responsibility and do the right thing. You should avoid a defensive attitude that fights the customer by trying to show them how wrong they are and how right you are.
In customer service, you need to remember that some people don’t know how to argue, and they don’t even like it. If they raise an issue and you keep intercepting them, they will give up the fight and say, “it is okay.” If you are an unwise, you will celebrate because you won an argument not knowing your “win” in the bid to “look right” means losing a client.
So, it is wiser to lose an argument and retain a customer because wisdom dictates that you fight to win the customer back to the fold.
6) Over Relying on Automation
In the day where technology is taking over, you should remember that technology can never replace people. An angry caller needs a human being to empathize with them. So, don’t over rely on automation, but instead, know when and where not to use it.
You now have all these blunders at your fingertips and how to avoid them. You have no reason to let your customers down the day you venture in business after graduating from business school.
