This document provides guidance on how to effectively handle customer complaints. It emphasizes that complaints should be viewed as opportunities rather than problems. Key recommendations include not being defensive, apologizing even when not at fault, addressing customers by name, actively listening without making excuses, following up on commitments, and turning dissatisfied customers into satisfied ones through efficient resolution of their issues. Customer feedback through surveys and focus groups can also help improve service delivery and prevent future complaints.

1. Handling
Customer
Complaints
DESINGED BY,
MR.SUNIL KUMAR,
LECTURER

2. 96 percent of dissatisfied
customers never bother to
complain
Each happy customer will tell at
the most six other people
Handling Customer
Complaints are
opportunities…not
problems!

3. How to Handle Customer
Complaints
Don’t be defensive
Be composed at all times
Don’t take criticisms personally
Offer an apology even if the disservice is
not your fault
Show empathy by using such phrases as:
“I can understand how you feel”, “I
appreciate what you’re saying.”

4. How to Handle Customer
Complaints
Address customers by name
All communication should be in the first person.
Use “I am sorry” not the royal we
Don’t make excuses or blame others in your
organization
Give the customer your full attention and
establish eye contact
Paraphrase their complaint in your own words
to determine whether you have correctly
understood the situation.

5. How to Handle Customer
Complaints
If you don’t know the answer to their problem,
don’t lie.
Do call back when you say you will, even if for
some reason, you haven’t been able to obtain
a satisfactory answer by then
Make the customer part of the solution - not
part of the problem

6. How to Handle Customer
Complaints
Tell them what you can do…not what
you can’t do
Find out what it will take to turn their
dissatisfaction into satisfaction
If they agree to that solution, act quickly
before they change their mind
Follow up
And remember: You can never win an
argument with a customer

7. Find out what you
customers really think
Surveys, focus groups, mystery
shopping
One complaint statistically represents
24 similar ones
Test your own service delivery

8. Listen carefully and
assume nothing
Never assume anything in
communications
Do not dismiss any of the customers
complaint as irrelevant
Give value to actual customer
experience

9. When all else fails - how
to make amends
95% of customers who have a complaint that
was handled efficiently and promptly will not
only continue to do business but will become
even more brand-loyal (Wharton Business
School)
Product replacements, good will gifts, free of
charge services, etc…

10. Dashing Salaam!