According to the Customer Experience Impact Report carried out by Harris Interactive in 2011, 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience, up from 59% 4 years ago. As a businessman you need to understand the world is filled with various kinds of people, and in a business you will have to deal with all types of people in the form of customers. Now some of these customers will be very easy to convince and please, in short they’d be quite a pleasure to do business with. However we must not forget that a certain percentage of your customers will be difficult to deal with; they’ll have complaints and queries.
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If you’re an online company then communication may be your strongest point, but the same communication can be a source of problem when it comes to dealing with difficult customers and their queries. Some of these queries will be valid, as in understandable and some will be completely out of this world, like you’d end up wanting to pull your hair out.
You must know one thing, out of these never ending queries only a few are genuine whereas others are just finding an outlet to enquire out of their dissatisfaction from the product or service. The emergence and popularity of social networking websites, has further given the customers a whole new sort of convenient platform to inquire or complain on. Interesting fact to remember, 90% of North American firms view customer experience as important or critical to their business plans. 80% of firms would like to use customer experience as a form of differentiation (Forrester’s The State Of Customer Experience, 2011). Website Live Support provides you with a facility of Adding Live Chat to Website which helps you indulge into one-to-one interaction with your customers, aiding a better online experience. Here are 5 key rules that will help you deal with customer queries better.
Adapt the “Respond As-Soon-As-Possible” Strategy
It is very important for you to instill a culture of dealing with everything right away amongst your work force. In this highly competitive and globalized world where you’re not only facing local but also international competition, it is very important for you to ensure your employees are efficient because their efficiency is what will lead to a better reputation in the business world, therefore attracting more customers. Let’s not forget, because of these social networking websites it’s gotten very easy to monitor a company’s performance online, so you better be fast. According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC, Happy customers who get their issue resolved in time, tell about 4 to 6 people about their experience. This shows us how important it is to act in time as it really acts as a good marketing tool. This rule applies to not only the good posts but also to the bad ones.
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Carefully Read and Understand the Query before Taking Any Action
Typically, a dissatisfied consumer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience but about 13% dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people (Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC). So make sure you don’t piss off a customer who’s already dissatisfied with you or your company. Why so, simple – you can’t afford to make more mistakes. What we advise is that you read the query/complaint very carefully and ensure that you get everything it’s saying before you get to the responding bit. The customer is always right, is what you need to nail into all your employees as they deal with customers.
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Keep Your Responses Clear and To the Point
Product websites and social media platforms are not places you can get away with writing essays in responses, they’re made for quick conversations that customers or user can quickly skim and scan through, as opposed to an in-depth analysis. Always remember, an average social-media using generation’s attention span is extremely tiny, so avoid being a buzz kill. Remember to maintain a professional tone no matter how grave the situation gets. We will suggest you try your best to not pick a fight with any customer, because that would in split seconds start an online PR massacre. Make sure your responses don’t seem too automated, as that might come off as you don’t care.
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Don’t Forget the Basic Greetings and Courtesies
Always remember to greet and thank your customers properly. An easier way of doing this would be by Adding Live Chat to Website and providing Website Live Support, as these chat agents greet your web visitors 24/7 and initiate a conversation in an attempt to solve their queries, which is exactly what you need. Furthermore, a proper professional tone needs to be maintained throughout, as that would leave a good impact in the mind of the customer.
Offer a Little Extra
Why not get the contact details of the customer enquiring details or complaining about your product/service and contact them (through an email, text message or even a phone call depending on the severity of the query or complaint) after resolving their problems enquiring if they have some other queries, or if their complaint was taken care of. Customers appreciate the extra effort you make for them, so you rechecking on their issue by contacting them via another medium would be considered something that is “above and beyond the call of duty,” and will be appreciated by your customer for sure. Just take it a step further; if they complained via social network, then you email them to check on their satisfaction and if they complained via email, then you use a text message to recheck on situation. If you feel like it was really your fault, the sort that would really upset a customer then we recommend you make up for it, by either providing them with a free/discounted product or service as compensation for your error. Attracting a new customer costs 5 times as much as keeping an existing one according to Lee Resource Inc. Hence, what you need to aim at is building up as many long term customers as possible.
Going the Extra Mile
It’s safe to say that every business whether it’s online or not has to deal with situations where things don’t work out exactly how a customer expects them to. However if you keep these 5 key rules in mind when answering their queries or responding to complaints the chances of you providing your customers with a better customer experience increase. Adding Live Chat to Website and providing Website Live Support further act as icing on top of a yummy cake, so I suggest you go for it!
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