One of my main bug bears is poor customer service. It is absolutely vital to customer service right, particularly handling customer complaints. If you don't handle complaints well then not only are you likely to lose the customer who is dissatisfied, but they are more likely to tell others about bad service than they are good service, so you stand to lose many more customers by getting it wrong. As a freelancer you really needed to take control upon hearing my complaint and deal with it with empathy.
Make it easy to complain — let clients know that you want to hear if things are not quite right.
Let the client vent if they want to — listen to and acknowledge how they are feeling first before getting to solutions and don’t be drawn into arguing.
Thank the client — simply thanking the client for taking the time to inform you of an issue takes the steam out of a situation.
Find a way to apologise — even if they are ‘wrong’. They are the client and they are dissatisfied. Do it only when they have given enough detail so it rings true.
Break down the complaint to find out the real issue and what would be a solution to it.
Fix the issue if you can. Make sure you follow up the complaint. Be proactive with a customer to find a solution.
View complaints as gifts — they allow you to review your service and innovate and also recover a client who may have otherwise gone elsewhere.
Put a prevention plan in place to ensure a similar complaint doesn’t happen again.
It may be difficult to take complaints without getting defensive, by seeing them as part of the feedback process and handling them well you can actually turn them into an advantage. I often remember favourably those who have dealt with a complaint of mine well and exceeded my expectations.
I definitely remember those who didn’t seem to care.
