In a restaurant, not so far away, in the not so distant future, a telephone rings, a customer complains and the battle begins! How does your company deal with customer complaints? The easiest way to find out is to pick up the phone and play the role of the complaining customer. What happened? If you were an irritated customer, would you return?
Using the B. This is the cornerstone of handling a customer complaint. Yes, the customer may be lying and be incorrect about their situation. It is important to understand that your customer believes that your establishment has wronged them.
As soon as a customer starts to complain, we start to think of how we will respond to the accusation before we are done listening, and too often the case, already have the response ready to fight back. Take a second, relax, and listen. On occasion a complaining customer will be rude, angry, and use vulgar language, stay the course and remain calm and level headed. When the customer is done venting; in a calm, non-judgmental tone, repeat their problem.
An example I used in my KFC for a mispacked order:. Listen and clarify. Never defend or justify. No excuses, just solutions. Always apologize even if you did nothing wrong. Make it right. Be the judge of what is fair of course, but allow them the opportunity to feel empowered over the situation. Many times they may ask for the problem be taken care of on their next visit or maybe that you talk to the person who made the mistake and correct them.
We used a great system of sending out a personalized postcard apologizing for the mistake, it was a couple of handwritten sentences yes, many times with spelling mistakes from my team members , but it was personal and always well received.
