recognize and resolve common customer service complaints
Employees at all levels need to understand why it is essential to satisfy complaints. Organizations should remove barriers that might limit the customer complaint process and management should take all customer complaints seriously. Follow up with customer complaints, either immediately or at a later date, gains feedback on the satisfaction level of the resolved customer complaint. The follow up on the complaint resolution by management shows the importance to the customer from the organization and increases the retainment of the customer.
When customers have a specific complaint, follow these steps:
1. Actively listen.
2. Be courteous and helpful.
3. Ask questions that require logical thinking by the customer to try to diffuse the situation.
4. Do not become emotionally involved. Understand that you are not the target of customer’s irate state.
5. Identify the problem as quickly as possible.
6. Take the responsibility immediately.
7. Make a sincere, positive statement about the situation to the customer.
8. Solve the problem. Get help from a supervisor and let the customer know what you plan to do.
All individuals are unique, and not all of these individuals are challenging customers. However, there may be challenges when resolving customer’s complaints when certain obstacles are present and can escalate situations. Obstacles in communication such as language, age, or hearing impairment will make communicating with customers difficult if employees are not able to support those communication needs. Personality clashes and poor attitudes will escalate situations if employees are not adequately trained to handle their emotions. Emotions such as anger, superior position, or being impatient will escalate a bad
Competency
Recognize and resolve common customer service complaints.
Scenario
You have recently been hired as the new Customer Service Manager for a large car dealership. The owner of the dealership has been receiving reports about the large number of customer service complaints from the Service Department customers. These complaints have come from both new and existing customers. As the new Customer Service Manager, your role is to resolve the customer service complaint issues within the service department and increase customer satisfaction.
Instructions
You have been asked by the owner of the dealership to develop a plan on how to effectively handle complaints.
In a 1-2-page Word document include the following information:
- Determine a method to collect the information about customer complaints.
- To educate the staff within the Service Department on how to interact with customers who are dissatisfied, identify five customer complaints and include 1-2 paragraphs each about how to resolve these types of complaints.
