According to Forrester Research (FORR), 80% of companies say that they deliver exceptional customer service. The problem is, only a scant 8% of their customers agree.
Those stats come from Jay Baer, author of “Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers.”
As Strother Martin’s character famously said in the movie “Cool Hand Luke,” “What we have here is failure to communicate.”
Baer, who is president of Convince & Convert, an online customer service and digital marketing consultancy/media company, goes on to say that organizations ignore one-third of customer complaints, most of them in online, public venues. That's a mistake, he said: “Haters are the most important customers, but they are treated as the least important. Haters aren’t your problem; ignoring them is.”
Tips on turning complaints into satisfied and loyal patrons:
Engage banter. Baer doesn’t mince words: “Answer every customer complaint, in every channel, every time.”
He notes that each time you do, customer advocacy increases up to 25%, according to the research conducted for his book. Also, interact with customers in the venues they prefer, not the ones the business finds convenient.
Baer says that only 5% of unhappy customers ever complain, and they “are vital because they go out of their way to tell the company what it needs to do better. Complaints are the petri dish of improvement.”
They also might be the tips of a larger iceberg. Those who don’t complain may just stop buying from your company.
You reply only twice. The most important lesson for handling online complaints, Baer states, is “you never, ever, ever respond more than two times to any customer in a public, online venue.”
His reasoning: If a customer has a positive comment, two replies is more than sufficient. “In the more likely scenario of negative feedback, when you encounter a ranting and raving customer, reply twice with an apology and a remediation option. Then just walk away.”
Recognize patron feelings. Liz H. Kelly, a marketing consultant who was a vice president of training and quality for T. Rowe Price (TROW), says that it’s imperative that customer service reps “acknowledge when someone is upset.” Instead of being defensive with an angry customer, “the most important thing to do is acknowledge their emotion first. You can usually diffuse someone’s anger by simply saying, 'I understand your frustration’ or 'We are sorry you had a bad experience and want to get your issue resolved right away.’ You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to acknowledge their frustration.”
Right from the get-go, make sure that an angry customer believes you are on his team. By doing so, she said, “you will significantly increase your chances of not only keeping the customer but turning them into a loyal supporter.”
Accelerate response times. Forty percent of customers who complain in social media expect a reply within one hour, Baer relays.
A firm that replies that fast, Kelly said, “rebuilds trust and minimizes damage to their reputation. AT&T (T) and DirecTV are among many brands who now have dedicated customer service teams who deal with complaints on social media.”
Consider that the average time it takes a company to reply to an email is 44 hours. “This is too slow, and in many cases a sluggish email response causes customers to assume they will not hear back at all, so they then complain online, in public,” Baer said.
As for the telephone, consumers say that response time is the most important factor in their satisfaction with customer service.
See the big picture. Customer service is becoming a spectator sport, Baer points out, because “every time you interact with a customer in an online, public venue like Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR), review sites or forums, you are displaying for hundreds or thousands of onlookers the values of your business.”
Kelly adds that because customers look online first before making a purchase, brands must learn to hug their haters on social media.
Baer cautions that’s why it’s so dangerous to ignore online complaints: “After all, no reply IS a reply that says, 'We don’t care about our customers.’ ”
Image provided by Shutterstock.
