Losing a customer or failing to meet his or her expectations can be scary. It’s important to remember, though, that you haven’t lost them yet. Research has shown that if you resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor they will do business with you again 70% of the time. The trick is reaching out and making things right while the complaint is still fresh in the customer’s mind. We’ve laid out the three steps to resolve bad customer reviews to help you make good.
Monitor your own and popular review outlets often.
The industry you’re in and the products you sell will influence what reviews sites you’ll have to monitor. You may only be able to check out reviews on Amazon, and that’s fine. The important thing is that you’re paying attention to what customers are saying. If you’ve just released a product, you’ll probably want to monitor more frequently than you would between launches. Figure out a schedule that allows you manage your monitoring times well while also allowing you to…
Respond in a timely manner.
If a buyer is unsatisfied, you want to make it right and keep them as a customer. In order to do that, you have to respond to their complaint in a timely manner. If you fail to, customers will feel like their problems are just being ignored, and they’ll start shopping around for another brand.
Resolve the problem in a reasonable way.
I recently placed an order that took nearly a month to reach me. I was frustrated, but since the item worked when it finally reached me, I felt that all I could do was leave a poor review of the seller itself. Within a day, I received an email apologizing for the poor service, and a refund of my shipping charges plus 10% of the overall purchase charge. The total refund only amounted to about $9, but the fact that they were trying to make the situation right left a huge impression on me. It might not make sense to fully refund or replace a purchase, but finding a compromise somewhere in the middle will definitely send the right message.
If your customer service could stand some improvement, we’ve got three ways to use social media to improve it.
