Staying on Top of Complaints During the Christmas Rush

The Christmas season can be the busiest time of year for your business. Not only is there more customers, more sales, and more demand, there’s also more pressure for your business to perform. 

Customers have high expectations during the festive season and demand quality service from brands. This is why your business may face increased complaints during Christmas. 

When handled correctly, you can use these complaints as a catalyst for improving your customers’ satisfaction and capturing new customers. 

In this blog, we’re sharing our top tips on how to stay on top of your complaints during the Christmas rush. 

Thank them

The first step is to thank your customer for their complaint. Show appreciation for the time and effort they put in to giving you feedback. This helps to give them positive recognition and to show that you care. 

Remember, your customer didn’t have to give you feedback. They could have just left you for a competitor. That’s why it’s important to thank them for their time, especially during a busy season like Christmas. 

Don't be defensive

It can be easy to get defensive when an angry customer is complaining to you. Customers can often exaggerate situations, get confused, or even lie to you. Especially during stressful shopping seasons like Christmas, customers can become emotional when complaining. It’s tempting to correct them and defend your business. However, this will only cause more conflict. 

Instead, you should listen to them, show empathy, and keep the conversation moving in a positive direction. 

Show your desire to improve

Once you understand what your customer values, then show them what your company does to perform well in those areas. For example, if they are complaining about a package arriving late, then you would say, ‘We understand on-time, quick delivery is important’. Then reinforce this by telling them about your new technology that allows you to make faster deliveries. 

When you express your desire to improve, you are then on the way to rebuilding your credibility and earning your customers’ trust. This will help you to recover sales at Christmas. 

Educate the customer

Whilst listening to your customer’s complaint, take note of any questions they may have. Then provide them with additional and useful information to answer these questions. If they ask you something that you don’t know the answer to, tell them that you’ll find out and get back to them. Then, make sure that you actually follow through.

Giving the customer a clearer understanding of your product or service can help to increase their satisfaction. This is especially important during Christmastime. 

Always apologise

Even though the customer is not always right, they are still the customer. That means you should always apologise for their situation. Even if the issue wasn’t your fault, you still need to apologise and show empathy for a positive outcome. This will help to rebuild your relationship with the customer and stop the issue from growing. 

Although your customer service team will be busy during Christmas, it’s important to take the time to apologise to every complainant. This will help to stop them doing further damage to your reputation. 

Offer a solution

Then, you need to offer a solution to the issue. Offer something to the customer as a token of appreciation or a gesture of goodwill. This can be compensation like a discount, store credit, voucher, or freebie. 

Although this may sound expensive for your business, it’s important for recovering customers and turning them into loyal advocates. Especially during Christmas, successfully turning complainants into advocates is important for protecting the reputation of your brand. 

Need a better way to handle complaints?

The best way to stay on top of complaints during the Christmas rush is to use industry-specific software.

At Causia®, our Complaints Pro® provides a quick, cost-effective, centralised workflow for the best practice management of complaints. We can give you complete visibility and control of your complaints, incidents and risks in a single integrated solution. 

Book a demo or talk to our expert team today to streamline your approach.