No one likes complaints. Sometimes, complaints will lead to you improving your business, and the complaint is valid. However, other times, the complaint is simply unwarranted. People often take out their frustrations on others, and they will complain about the smallest thing. If you’re dealing with people on any level, you probably come across this far more than you want to admit. How you handle these customer complaints, regardless of how valid they are, is crucial to maintaining a positive reputation and ensuring long-term success.
Understand that some complaints are valid
As a small business owner, you’re so wrapped up in everything that it’s easy to get lost in what you’re doing. You might think that a person who is complaining is just having a bad day and they want to take it out on you. That’s not always the truth because sometimes you or your employees make mistakes.
If you run a service-based business, it’s entirely possible that you or someone who works for you made a mistake. Maybe you didn’t clean the windows to the high standards that you normally do. You need to investigate the complaint and try your best to determine if what they’re saying is accurate. If the complaint from the customer is accurate, then you need to investigate the cause of the complaint.
What to do if a complaint is unwarranted
Okay, so let’s set the scene. You own a small pizzeria, and someone says that they found hair in their food. You know there isn’t a hair in the food because you’re bald and you made the pizza. What do you do? First, you take a look at the pizza to see if there is, in fact, a hair in it. If there is, and it’s not the color of the customer’s hair, maybe a worker’s hair got onto the pizza somehow.
If there’s no way possible that a hair got on the pizza, and you’re sure of it, but the customer is there and they are going ballistic, make them a new pizza. Do your best to get them out of there as fast as possible. If you feel that they’re trying to rip you off and they didn’t buy a pizza, that’s a totally different story. You will have to go toe-to-toe with them and say flat out that you know they’re trying to scam you.
The customer is always right
The best solution to complaints is to fix the problem as quickly as possible. Don’t argue with the customer and if they’re a repeat customer, off them a discount on their next purchase. You want this entire situation over as fast as you can put an end to it. Nothing good is going to happen if you allow a customer to steam and continue to get angrier.
Sometimes, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you know you’re in the right, but you need to swallow your pride and just go with the flow. Sure, the customer might be a jerk, but you need to get this behind you. The worst thing that could happen is that other customers hear of the situation, or the person gives you bad feedback online.
Always instruct your employees to deal with customer complaints quickly and make sure they are resolved. If someone isn’t completely satisfied, do whatever you can to satisfy their needs. As long as what the customer wants is realistic, there’s no reason why you can’t meet them. The goal here is just to get the person to stop complaining so they go out the door and put an end to the situation.
Complaints are a part of doing business
Never forget that your employees are watching how you handle complaints. If they see that you’re serious about resolving complaints, they’ll act accordingly. Anytime they see you belittle or talk down to a customer, they’ll think that this is how they should handle complaints.
Complaints aren’t the end of the world and they shouldn’t cause you to lose sleep. You’ve had complaints about businesses and you know it’s a natural part of the customer service experience. What isn’t natural is treating a customer complaint in a way that could harm your business or worse, cause you to be criminally libel.
