1. Resolving Customer Issues
The Mission:
Customer Retention and Loyalty
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2. The Cost of Customer Issues
• Only 4% of dissatisfied customers complain. 96% leave without
any communication to the Company
• Of the 96% who leave, 91% will never return
• A typical dissatisfied customer will tell 8 to 10 people about the
issues with our Company
• 1 in 5 dissatisfied customers will tell 20 people about the issues
with our Company
• It takes 12 positive incidents to make up for one negative
incident
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3. The Rewards of Resolved Issues
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4. What is a Complaint?
“An expression of dissatisfaction made to an
organization, related to its products (services), or
the complaints-handling process itself, where a
response or resolution is explicitly or implicitly
expected”
ISO 10002
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5. Her
Expectations
WERE
Not
met
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6. Only 8% of the 60
Companies studied
effectively deploy
this strategy to
resolve customer
issues.
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7. Customer
• Lack social skills • To be heard
• Nervous • To be understood
• Harsh, one sided • To be respected
• Emotional • To have their concern dealt
• Lack understanding with quickly, fairly, properly
• Rude • To be given what they have
• Unreasonable been denied; an apology
1-4% of customers systematically cheat businesses
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8. Manager
• Ignore complaints • Direct communication
• Defensiveness about failures, competitors
• Anger • Define what customers
• Concern loss of sale want
commissions • Opportunity to increase
• Annoyance, time customer trust
consuming, costly • Customers as advocates
• Wish they would just go • Build long term relationship
away!
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9. Customer Service
• Apology only, nothing • Policy a “complaint
resolved welcoming” culture
• Blame the Customer • Complaint handling
• Promise but don’t deliver training, including empathy
• No response at all and conflict handling
• Rudeness • Clearly defined Escalation
• Pass on to another path (difficult complaints)
• Customer Interrogation • Continuous improvement
focus
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10. Underlying Principles to “Complaint Welcoming” Culture
There are 2 Levels of messages embodied in complaints
The customer has 2 separate needs when complaining-
needs as individuals and needs relating to the complaint
The benefits of Customer recovery far outweigh the cost
of losing a customer or attracting another customer
The majority of customers are honest
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11. Example A
Surface message – “product is not working” (as expected)
Underlying message – “I don’t understand the technology,
I need your help figuring it out”
Example B
Surface message- “I am disappointed with…” my service/
product during my last visit/purchasing experience
Underlying message – “I am testing the value of my
loyalty to your business”
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12. • Needs as individuals
• To be heard
• To be understood
• To be respected
• Needs relating to the complaint
• To have their concern dealt with quickly, fairly and
properly
• To be given what they have been denied and
perhaps an apology
• To have action taken to fix a problem or address a
concern- a resultant process change
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13. If a customer is complaining, you are being
given a chance to retain that customer…
Don’t Blow It
Don’t allow the opportunity to fade away
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14. Resolving Customer Issues
• Thank customer for contacting you
• Explain why feedback is appreciated
• Apologize for service/product failure
• Take responsibility and make commitment to
customer
to resolve the issue as quickly as possible
• Collect all information from customer
• Correct or facilitate correction as promptly as possible
• Check to assure customer satisfaction
• Commit to prevent future failures of this type
The Customers faith can be restored using this method…
ONCE!
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15. Best Practice to Resolving Issues
1. Apologize for the failure of the product or service
2. Explain what steps you are taking to correct the situation
3. Explain what steps you are taking so that the failure will not
happen to anyone else in the future
Don’t hesitate to ask the Customer what they feel is a
fair resolution to the problem
You must follow up to make sure your promise is met!
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16. NEVER
EVER
BLAME
OR ANY
ASSOCIATE!
Never Ever!
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