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Turning Difficult Customers into Raving Fans
>>by Robert Moment
Learn how to turn difficult customers into raving fans..
If there is one thing that businesses still have to master, it is the art of customer satisfaction. That's
no fault of anyone because if customer satisfaction was that easy to master (if
it can be mastered at all), there would be no need for customer service
departments, customer service training, or books teaching the numerous ways to
please a customer. The truth is, customers being humans, can never be
satisfied. There's always something else that customers feel can be improved or
tweaked for better service.
But, there are ways to deal with difficult customers and more importantly, turn
them into raving fans of your product or service. Sounds impossible, but it has
been done. The trick is, or rather, the way to achieve this is to get customer
service back to basics.
Research has shown that customers turn dissatisfied very quickly not because of
the price of a product, but the bad experiences they've had with customer
service. So, when customers turn difficult, understand that their frustration
may have stemmed from previous experiences they may have had with bad customer
service.
So how can you turn difficult customers into raving fans?
Take Charge Of The Situation
When a customer starts ranting, it's easy to get trapped into a war of words
and end up with more trouble than you began with. The more difficult option,
but the better one is to stay calm and take control of the situation professionally.
Customers vent because they want to be heard and acknowledged, so allow them to
do that. They will have to stop venting eventually and upon doing so, they
would have realized that throughout the entire episode, you never once raised
your voice or tried to blow them off. You actually took the time to listen to
them and understand their frustrations.
You now have the opportunity to work with the customer in a calm and friendly
manner, impressing upon him that you understand and deeply regret his
predicament and will do everything possible to resolve the issue in the
quickest time possible. With the situation taken charge of professionally, not
only will your customer be thoroughly impressed, but you would have just made
him a raving fan.
Even Difficult Customers Need To Feel Important
Difficult customers rant and complain not just to be heard, but to feel
important enough to contribute something constructive. Customers complain
mainly for two reasons: 1) they feel they have been wronged and 2) they feel
they're good enough to comment on certain aspects of your business.
Acknowledging the fact that all customers want to feel important and be treated
well is the right step in turning them into raving fans. An effective way of
doing this is to do a follow-up call with previously dissatisfied and unhappy
customers and find out if your business has fulfilled all their needs and if
there is anything else you can do for them. It's such an underutilized strategy
that these customers will have no choice but to return to you again and again.
Give More To Get More
Another strategy to win over difficult customers is to practice the art of
giving more than they've paid or asked for. Someone said that the quickest way
to a man's heart is through his stomach and it could be probably true that the
quickest way to a customer's heart is by giving and giving more.
When customers have been accustomed to getting what they've paid for, giving
that little bit extra can make a world of difference to them. For example, if
it's a difficult customer who is demanding a refund, something as simple as
giving him his full refund with a complimentary gift to compensate for all his
troubles can make a difficult customer a raving fan.
So, when it comes to turning difficult customers into raving fans, it's really
about getting back to customer service basics and paying attention to the
details. Customers may never ever be fully satisfied, but that's the price to
pay for being human.
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Robert Moment |
| About the author: |
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Robert Moment
is an innovative small business coach , customer serviceconsultant and author of “Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer
Service”
Visit http://www.customerservicetrainingskills.com and sign-up for the FREE 5 Day
e-course titled, “Creating Wow Customer Service Experiences”.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Your customers experiences equal money. TeleFaction’s Return on Behavior concept helps you to increase the value of your customers’ experiences. Whether you focus on improving customer satisfaction and loyalty, increasing additional sales and resale, reducing churn and loss of customers, or improving your critical business relations in customer service at all contact points, TeleFaction offers a solution that will yield the desired results. Return on Behavior Magazine is a free service from TeleFaction.
Return on Behavior Magazine was produced in cooperation with Customaxi
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