Congratulations! You began your new business, and you are looking to gain a customer base. You’ve built your product, and you’re confident that your customers are going to love it. However, from time to time you will find that customers complain and aren’t as happy as you thought they might be.
Over 30% of consumers that have a bad experience stop all interactions with the brand they were using. With two or more bad experiences, over 50% of customers will leave.
Customer satisfaction is, unfortunately, a part of business, but you can’t please people all of the time with your products and services. You may strive to do so, but things outside your control can sometimes get in the way, and you don’t want these dissatisfied customers to end up affecting the growth trajectory of your business.
Here’s how you can turn customers into satisfied and happier customers.
Make an effort to find out why a customer is unhappy
Before you try to make a customer happy, you need to find out what has gone wrong. Normally customer dissatisfaction is a result of poor communication, poor customer service or customers not fully understanding how your product or service works to provide the benefits advertised.
Both issues are fairly easy to deal with if you get to the root of the problem. Explain that you’re looking to exceed expectations and that you aren’t happy that you are falling short in this instance and that you want to understand what is wrong.
You can then go on to identify what the problem is and can do further explanation in line with what the customer said. The important thing is that you make sure that you listen, understand, process and then solve the problem.
Speed is of the essence
When you are dealing with customer complaints, you need to get back to the customers as soon as you can. You can’t have them waiting around for 24 to 48 hours. If you have an immediate solution, make sure to provide it immediately.
If, on the other hand, you haven’t yet figure out what the problem is, make sure you’re looking into it, and maintain regular lines of communication with the customer. That way, the customer feels valued and is happy to maintain a business relationship with your company.
Work out solutions
When you have a firm grip of the problem, you need to find ways to solve it. A good way of doing so is to ask the client what they think is the best way to get them the solution that they want. This will give you a point to start from and will enable you to understand their thinking.
If their demands are outrageous, then you need to find a happy compromise. Where the problem will cause your business to suffer loss, especially when you offer services and professional advice, professional indemnity insurance is the solution to avoiding complex problems.
Seek out feedback from customers
An important part of dealing with dissatisfied customers is working out what makes customers happy. This means seeking out feedback throughout the sales cycle, and after-sales too. You can look at improvements in product development and new features, feedback on customer service and quality control, and can also study social proof through social media testimonials, reviews and comments.
All of this will feed into your understanding of what customers want and help you become better at dealing with ways to satisfy customers as they arise.
Some final thoughts
When you have a business, you need to make sure that you turn as many customers as you can into peak customers. Customer acquisition is expensive, and a dissatisfied customer shouldn’t be shunned. They should be embraced and turned around, and then they can often become the most loyal ambassadors for your company.
The companies that are best at keeping customers always strive to exceed customer expectations. However, they also look to develop their understanding of their customers in every transaction. Go the extra mile, not just in pleasing customers, but in understanding them when you are interacting with them.