In today’s Internet-based world, consumers are given more power to react against businesses than ever. If a user has a positive experience with some business, they will surely share the experience with their friends, family, and acquaintances, which can help them to acquire new business sources. A customer complaint can highlight an issue, doesn’t matter if the problem is with your product, employees, or some processes. When upcoming customers find these concerns from your past or existing customers, they might run away even before getting in touch with you. You can perform analysis to improve in the direction to prevent getting any further complaints. Research study has proven that customers whose grievances and concerns are handled timely often turn into loyal customers and even free brand promoters.

However, the negative comments sometimes work as a blessing in dissemble if used correctly. Think of your brand as a tool for getting free customer insights, feedback, improvement areas, and valuable information without any need to conduct any customer survey from your end.

What do you understand with consumer complaints?

Consumer complaints are the gap existing between what a customer gets and what any brand promise to deliver to their customers as products and services. It is a difference between your offerings and your customers’ experience with your brand. A consumer usually complains about a brand when it doesn’t help fulfill their expectations with the offered products and services.

How to handle consumer complaints?

Listen and understand

Never overlook your customers and always listen to what they say. They have written a complaint for some reason and it is crucial to identify what made them write over those complaint boards. Research shows that customers are more bothered about receiving good quality than a quick response. Make sure to take enough time to listen and recognize their problem. In order to maintain the quality of what you offer, use your customer service user base.

Apologize

Never hesitate to apologize for your mistake or concern arising due to your service quality. Many customers expect a simple apology and addressing of their complaint, however, there are still so many businesses diffident in admitting when they make a mistake.

Find a solution

When your customer has written a genuine and legit complaint, you should try and find the root cause and then solve it thoroughly. Give your team the right to manage the customer complaints mentioned in your business name so as to avoid passing your customer going to locate negative complaints. If you find a bad comment or complaint about your brand, try to remove complaints from search results else it might influence their decision of buying.

Follow up with the customer

Don’t forget to follow up with your customers to ensure they are gladdened with the delivered solution. This follow-up can be in the form of an email or survey requesting for feedback on how your team has handled their complaint.

Exceed expectations

Never ignore to acknowledge the concern, fix the grievance, and then have a follow-up. Now, go a step ahead and try to exceed customer expectations, whether it is through expressing gratitude with thank you notes or to give the customer access to discounts, rewards, or new product features.

Handling customer complaints is a long-term process. If you are ignoring it, Google or other search engines will start showing you in a negative light. And, no business would ever want that. Always monitor the complaints you are receiving mentions for on a weekly or monthly basis to keep a track of new complaints and make sure to have a follow-up on open complaints. If you think it is becoming hard for you to manage, you can always turn to an online reputation management company to help you with the removal of complaints from consumer complaint boards.