How to Deal With Customer Feedback

In business, customers must always come first.

Without customers, you do not have a business. It is as simple as that.

The World’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and all round American technology entrepreneur, philanthropist and inventor has taken this customer mindset in to his boardroom. It is well known that at the board of Amazon, Bezos always leaves an empty chair; positioned around the table. This empty chair is there to act as a metaphor for the customer; every decision made by the board and the board members must have the customer in mind. Every decision made at the board table must be agreed by this empty chair.

And the same should be said for many business owners. It does not matter your company size; every decision you make should always have the customer in mind.

It can be tough to handle customer complaints and can certainly seem like a daunting task. Get it wrong, and you could face a steeper backlash. Ignore complaints, and you lose a customer for life; or even worse, they stop other customers coming to shop with you.

So here are our top three tips on how to handle customer dissatisfaction, and to ensure all round good customer return rates.

Always Deal with Feedback

 We all know that bad news travels much faster than good news; and in the business world this statement is solid gold.  If we have a bad experience of anything, the likelihood is that we will tell 10 people. If we have a good experience, we will only tell 1 person.

Scary statistics, right? But they are true!

Whether you are listening to good feedback, or negative feedback – use it, and work with it. It is easy to let emotions take over after hearing negative feedback; especially if it is your own business. Your business is your pride and joy, right? You nurtured it from the very beginning, and now someone is slating it?! Take a step back, breath do not allow emotions to rule your response and take a breather before you respond.

Do not shy away from feedback and hide away – then, take the next two steps into consideration….

Use Your Ears

 Most of the time, when a complaint comes in, the complaining person just wants to be listened to. They want to have their voice heard and have their say. The worst thing you can do is to not listen and ignore what they are telling you and perhaps disagree with their points.

Show that you are actively listening to your customers complaints and show empathy whilst doing so. For all you know, your customer could just be having a really rough day; their wife could have left them, their bank card may have been stolen. You just never know! Sure, they should not take their emotions on you or your business, but their experience with you could just be the light that lit the fuse. Show empathy, listen, and show with intent that you care.

Learn from Mistakes

 Using the two above tips, it is time to get pro-active in your quest to keep customers happy. If you can handle feedback and listen in the right ways, then you also need to actively get out there and prove you are taking action. And that means not only in the moment right now, but also for the future too. Normally a complaint can be handled smoothly and calmly if you can prove you are willing to take action. If not, if you hide behind ‘policies and procedures’ you are only going to make the situation much worse. Feedback, including customer complaints give you ample opportunity to put things right and ensure that you are actively improving the customers experience.

 

Always remember; your customer supports your business; without them, you do not have a business. So, support them back. Listen, care, and take action to appease the complaint and you may find the relationship between your customer and your business will grow much stronger.