Customer Complaints.. Are they killing your life? Read on..

Part of the offering of services we provide to our clients, is that we respond and reply to their customer comments, feedback and complaints.  Whether it’s TripAdvisor or Facebook, emails or comment cards -every day my life is filled with the good, the bad and often just plain fucking confusing. I actually quite like it and being able to assist and mediate between customers and clients and I’ll tell you why. 

Largely how we judge a restaurant,  business or a service is dependent on what our peers say. We’re a society driven on what other’s say and think vs seeing for ourselves. We put so much trust and value in the opinions of strangers,  but how much of it is true, relevant and will it reflect your decision as a consumer to visit or utilise this product or offering? Quite a lot. Just think about your spending and consumer decision making..

It’s not all bad, quite the contrary actually. It’s nice reading reviews where customers leave glowing comments and feedback, and then at other times it’s pretty soul crushing that there are others where a client might of missed the mark, or either a staff member or customer were simply having a bad day.

Regardless of the feedback, it’s important to review, share with your teams and see exactly what people are saying about you.

The reason I respond to these reviews and feedback, is because I’m not emotionally invested (don’t get my wrong I give a shit about what’s happening, and if I work for you I’m on your side) BUT I’m not in the thick of the situation, and I can mediate between both the customer and client.

Call me the voice of reason, the ‘fuck you filter’ and the person that looks at the bigger picture about how we collectively can come to reach a resolution or call people out for just being a dick.

Let me explain.

For too long, there has been this adage in that “the customer is always right”. I hate to tell you shoppers but at times, you’re not. Largely there are people out there that wrought this system. I’ve even seen and heard of people trying to extort business’ telling them, if they don’t get something for free then they’re going to leave them a negative comment and review. This is out right hostile and if you ever happened to pull this card and I’m in earshot, I wouldn’t want to be you.

Review the comments and feedback, and actually discuss them with your staff and team. If there are continual reoccurring issues or perhaps someones name pops up, then you might need to address and action this. We can’t be everywhere all the time, and often sometimes the ball can drop.

How you recover and deal with this is key to your online presence and the reputation of your business. So what do you do whens someone leaves you a scathing review? A good comment or some suggestions? Here are a few tips for what to do and don’t in the world of online opinions.

DO:

• Reply to all reviews. Whether they’re good or bad it’s important to address these issues or even thank people for their feedback.
  
  
• Share feedback both the wins’ and the losses with your staff and team.
• Make them aware of what’s going on and so that it’s brought to the surface and aired among the team.

• Encourage people to share their feedback and opinions online. Screenshot the good ones and share your social links and profiles with people, and where they can do so.
• Take feedback and comments on board. Being arrogant and not receptive to what others have to say, isn’t good for your image or business at all.
• Respond in a timely manner. The quicker the better you can acknowledge, act, discuss and rectify a situation the better.
• Take it offline. Rather than getting into a to and throw back and forth convo for everyone else to see, invite the customer when negative to contact you directly via email or phone and resolve the issue that way. You can then sort things out without it potentially getting nasty or for others to see.
• Allocate 1 person in the business or organisation as the person to handle your complaints. Have an internal policy in place on how you’ll handle them, who need to have an opinion and buy in and what you’re resolution process and procedure is.

DON’T

• Be rude, defensive and tell people where to go. Despite sometimes that being the case, remember the internet stores and saves everything and others will then see you as an arsehole and you’re potentially losing customers and business. Remember take it offline and try remove emotion from your response and reply.

• Make excuses. There is nothing more than someone making excuses, blaming someone else or shifting the blame. Whatever’s happened has happened! Sort out what you need to behind closed doors, and accept accountability and then sort the rest out later.
• Not reply! Are you like me, in that nothing annoys you more, when you’ve sent someone a message on Facebook, you see that they’ve read it yet they’re yet to reply? Man that annoys me. Now imagine you reply and respond only to the positive comments and pick and chose the ones that you want to reply too.
• Potential customers see this, the person that commented see this. It’s not very responsible as a customer and you’re doing essentially what an ostrich is doing, and sticking your head in the sand. It’s common courtesy and necessary in business to do so.
• Try not to take it personally and to heart and let it break your spirit! Shit happens, people are jerks, staff can let you down or you might drop the ball from time to time. While we all strive for perfection and consistency unfortunately sometimes things happen.
• Remember the same goes with customers too. Were they having a bad day? Did something before they visited you put them in a sour mood or were there circumstances outside of anyone’s control to put them in a sour mood too? There are always lots of contributing factors and remember there are always 2 sides to a story and experience.
• Don’t fear feedback. Use it to get better, do better and actually look at it as number of people there looking at your business identifying areas and issues you might not necessarily see.

Too often too, people are quick to provide feedback for the negative vs the positive, but they will tell you to your face how amazing and excellent it was. On those occasions, don’t be afraid to ask them to leave a comment on your website, or if you can use their emails and messages as testimonials.

If all else fails, and its too much of a task or issue for you, let me know and I’ll do it. I just treat it as fan mail with the occasional hateful message, but always get an awesome and surprising resolution.

If you’re a customer too and have an issue, show them whoever you’re dealing with the cours

Don’t fear feedback…