Paul Thomas explains how the key to managing complaints is making the customer feel like it is effortless doing business with you.
Handling complaints is never an easy task, even for the experienced customer service agent. But the key to better managing complaints – and more importantly, reducing them in the first place – is all about making the customer feel like it is effortless doing business with you.
The complaints-handling procedure by customer-facing organisations is still part of creating a good customer experience, as well as driving loyalty and customer retention. But more often than not, customer complaints stem from bad service, rather than something actually going wrong.
Customers expect glitches or problems to occur from time to time – the complaints arise when companies do not deal with those problems effectively and communicate with the customers. The customers then have to make the effort to resolve the situation by proactively contacting the organisation.
For example, if an energy company has a fault with its online payments service, it will dramatically reduce its complaints if it informs customers well before they are even aware of the problem; providing explanatory and helpful details will reduce the effort required of the customer.
If the energy supplier does not inform its customers, they will notice the setback and the supplier will be flooded with calls, making the process to deal with each complaint harder.
Pre-emptive contact, supported by analytics, will ultimately be the answer to making it as easy and effortless as possible for the customer. If someone calls a company after being issued with a bill, the customer service agent should be aware of this so they’re better able to pre-empt the content of the call, and therefore better equipped to resolve it.
In recent years many organisations – especially those in the retail space – have begun to understand the concept of reducing customer effort; energy providers should follow suit.
With functions such as click-to-chat, and social media interaction, customer effort has been dramatically reduced to the point where they don’t need to pick up a phone any more.
Paul Thomas
This has become reality through effective multichannel, and now omni-channel systems. The choices on offer to customers today present a situation whereby we can contact an organisation through our preferred channel, at our preferred time of day. There need not be any restrictions in ways to contact a company due to the technologies available in today’s modern world.
Through effective communication and implementation of successful technologies customer effort can be reduced, instilling greater loyalty and a higher satisfaction level. Ultimately, less customer effort equals fewer customer complaints, which in turn promotes loyalty.
With thanks to Paul Thomas at Aspect Software
Author: Megan Jones
Published On: 1st Oct 2014 - Last modified: 12th Dec 2018
Read more about - Archived Content, Alvaria, Complaints, Customer Effort
