Your worst customer experience and the lessons learnt in the process?

Recently I had a bitter customer experience. While that left me with a heavy heart the same also made me into thinking .

What could be done by organizations to prevent this?

• Don't start defending/deflecting spontaneously when customers start complaining like a reflex action...Listen carefully

Defending for the sake of defending ruins the whole game. It will ultimately only end up into eroding the whole discussion into an argument if the customer is also equally aggressive. Not a desirable situation.

If the customer complains instead of trying to defend at least try to look from their angle. Put yourself in their shoes .That will yield great results.

#Tip...Defending unnecessarily will only exacerbate the complaint.

• Accepting gracefully:

Things can go wrong.

No one is perfect.If there is some mistake made, please accept it gracefully rather than spoiling it further with wrong attitude. That would only worsen the situation and spoil the brand. Once the mistake is accepted the next logical step would be to do the damage control by making sure that the necessary rectification / correction is made to the total satisfaction of the customer.

For example, In our work involving Geo-synthetic systems if any error occurs from the manufacturer's side , we make sure that the end users don't suffer by all means by appropriately providing proper corrective measures immediately .

#Tip: Forget the ego..It is not a situation of who wins.You might pretend to lose to win the confidence of your customers for the benefit of your company.That is what an ideal employee should do to create a win-win situation.As consultants while we help organizations from the engineering industry(SMEs) to grow ethically across the globe we always instruct them to accept things gracefully if needed.

• Being kind and considerate to customers..

Customers can have different views. May be the policy of the organization doesn't match well with that. That is fine.

There could always be ways to pacify a customer who is upset (or even peacefully convince him/her) if the policy of the organization is ethical and acceptable without looking one sided (biased).

#Tip: Being kind and considerate generates a lot of confidence and would create a better atmosphere for problem solving.

• Always reply to the customers promptly.

If they bring to your attention some issue please don't beat around the bush.Focus on what is mentioned.Reply with proper answers which are acceptable and ethically correct.

#Tip: The delay in replying to a customer complaint or neglecting to reply are the deadly sins which would pave the way for ruining any confidence left with the customer(if at all any..) .

In these days of system generated messages which rule the digital world there are chances that every email generated with an attachment may not be manually updated keeping in view of the garbage in garbage out theory of automated systems.So this is bound to have errors if input data's are not updated.

• More important don't lose the touch with the customers by just communicating with them only through email and forwarding the documents by couriers. “Putting customers at the center of your business is what it takes to create a competitive advantage.”

#Tip : Please take out time to meet them in person, understand their requirements rather than communicating with them virtually at all points of time .If not corrected this could be a fatal mistake in the long term. In our work we always make an effort to meet our customers in person as far as possible.

• Even when the customer is probably wrong from organization's point of view,you could tactfully put across that point and make a good impression.

....Which means to say that while taking it out with a customer who might probably be discussing with a wrong assumption(data) utmost patience and care is required to put across the accurate point correctly from the organizations's side to make a good impression.

#Tip: It is important to be patient even when customer is probably wrong so that the impression created is positive even in such occasions.

Last but not the least , Consider that every customer can be a potential good will ambassador (Internal customers also included). So the golden rule should be to resolve the dispute with the customer in a manner that is fully acceptable to the customer.

The best quote that I have come across on this subject says it all.."A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all".

Thanks for reading and appreciate your comments on this subject... What is your worst customer experience? How you think the same could have been prevented?

#About Us: Our work is based on the philosophy that whatever we do should also be meaningful and adding value to not just the industry but to the society as well.We operate in the construction&Engineering industry and happy to help you to take your business to the next level.(This article was published on LinkedIn earlier).Disclaimer#Views expressed are personal opinions. Any issue with the content of this article should be brought to the attention of the author through email id geoandinnovativeconstructions@gmail.com.All images from googleimages . Text Copyright  2016 by Prakashan B.V,www.bvprgjconsultants.com — All Rights Reserved.