How to Respond to Complaints

If you work in customer service or even if you know somebody who works in customer service, you’re probably familiar with a story or two about customers from hell whose sole objective in life seems to be making work miserable for customer service representatives.  Whether on the phone or in a letter, these customers do nothing to hide their anger and frustration and spare no words letting you know what they think of your product or service.

It’s natural that your response to complaints like these will reflect the tone in which they were written.  Angry letters, after all, get angry responses.  When you’re responding to complaints, however, your professionalism hangs on whether you can overlook the anger and emotion customers have shoved in your face and focus on the issues and the solutions.  After all, the people you’re dealing with are probably very nice face to face.  The anonymity of telephone calls and letters, however, allows them to vent their frustration with impunity.

Remember, although you needn’t agree with your customer’s point of view, responding to a complaint successfully means that you do need to understand their situation and their feelings.  In this way, regardless of whether the customer’s expectations or demands for a solution were completely met, you can still go a long way towards soothing their anger and disappointment.

All communications with complaining customers, therefore, must be expressed in an understanding tone, whether you are speaking with them on the telephone or writing to them in a response letter.  That’s why now is a good time to read through the dusty old response formats your company has been sending to complaining customers for ages and see if the language you’re using to express your empathy is current, new- millennium, business English.

Once you have responded to a customer’s complaint, take ownership of it and follow through to the end.  If you ensure that your company does the right thing by your customer and then call to check that the issue has been resolved to their satisfaction, you will consolidate your relationship and keep this customer for life.

Complaining customers aren’t really trying to spoil your day.  They just need to be understood.  If you can genuinely empathize with their problems and provide what they need, they may become more loyal than they were before complaining.