Use Your Customer Complaints to Build Rock Solid Customer Service

What is the best way to improve your company or brand? Well, as surprising as this may be, customer complaints are definitely one method-as counter-productive as that may sound. Not that you want to encourage customers to complain, but knowing your customers' concerns and issues can help your company make the changes it needs to improve and become trusted in the industry and among your customer base. The word complaint carries such a negative connotation that complaints are by default automatically viewed as negative and disappointing. However, they can be used to your benefit if you listen and take appropriate action to resolve them to best satisfy the needs of your customers. Be sure to also teach your employees how to handle complaints through effective customer service training.

For example: You take your spouse out to a restaurant. Despite knowing that different recipes and brands exist, you request your server bring you a rum and coke while your spouse orders a regular coke. Your drinks come, you offer thanks and ask for a few minutes before you order. After tasting you drinks, you come to the conclusion that the soft drink is flat as is the coke in your drink. After politely pointing this out to your server, they say they will correct it and bring you new drinks. However, imagine if your server had brought you yet again more flat drinks, ignoring the original problem. Would you return to his restaurant? More than likely you would not, or at least not for a very long time until after this memory fades.

The same idea behind this goes for any product regardless of type. As a company owner, would you want to continually disappoint your customers if it was a simple and easy fix? Probably not, at least not intentionally-if you knew about the problem you would more than likely want to fix it because your company will not benefit if customers' needs are not being met.

Customers who can rest assured that problems will be taken care of can more easily trust the company. Therefore, they will use word of mouth to point others towards your company or place of business which is one of the best advertisement methods around. The more customers you are satisfying, the more profit you will bring in leaving you with a much bigger profit and more satisfaction with your job knowing your customers' are happy with you product.

The importance of listening and taking the time to care about your customers' complaints can make or break your company. This should be included in any customer service training program or materials offered to your employees. Help them understand also that complaints are not necessarily 100% bad, and ensure that they know you feel this way. If you are creating a product that is faulty, no one will want to continue to spend their hard earned money on it but customers tend to offer some grace if the problem is corrected quickly and willingly. Listening to the complaints will help you improve them, and gain the trust of your customers. Pay attention and put into consideration what your customers need in order to satisfy them. Customer complaints are the best form of constructive criticism around. Listen, learn and change from it.

Catherine Rodriguez-Brown is a creative content manager for TrainingABC. TrainingABC is a distributor of customer service videos and DVDs including the best-selling customer service video, Give em the Pickle.