Customer complaints are a part of doing business - and how you handle them can make or break your business.
You can’t escape complaints, but how you respond to complaints can hurt or help your business.
Here are three ways to make the most out of customer complaints by turning them into business opportunities.
1. Improve Business Processes
One way to turn customer service complaints into a positive is by using them as feedback on how to improve your business. Customer complaints often reflect flaws in business operating and training procedures, product design or policies.
If you’re getting the same complaint frequently, it may provide a clue to something in your business that needs improvement. Using this type of clue can help you optimise your business policies and procedures.
Software like Complaints Pro®, which utilises analytics tools, can allow you to analyse which customer complaints arise most frequently so that you know which areas of your business most need improvement.
2. Recover Lost Business
Another way to turn customer complaints into positive opportunities is by using them to recover lost business. About four out of 10 customers who complain are hoping to get a resolution to an issue, such as an apology, a refund, a policy change or more transparency.
You could potentially convert complaining customers into repeat business if you develop policies and procedures that help you resolve common complaints. For example, if a customer calls asking for a refund, offering them an exchange can often satisfy the customer without costing you a lost sale.
Rewarding customers with bonuses as a way of apologising is another way to soothe complaints and encourage repeat businesses.
3. Identify Research and Development Opportunities
Just as customer complaints can provide you with insights into how to improve your business processes, it can also inspire ideas for developing new products and services.
Customer complaints often point toward needs that are not being met by your current line of offerings. Your competitors’ products and services may have similar issues...
By identifying customer problems that aren’t being solved by what’s currently on the market, you can find niches that are open for new products and services.
Summing Up
Customer complaints can provide you with ideas to improve your business processes. They can also create opportunities to turn complaints into resolutions that lead to recovered sales and repeat business. They can even suggest ideas for new products and services.
By adopting a proactive approach to handling customer complaints, you can turn negative feedback into positive profits.
Contact Complaints Pro® today to find out how we can help you implement these 3 strategies for customer complaints, and turn previously perceived “negatives” into success and growth for your team, business or company.
