Top 5 Tips for Reducing Customer Complaints

Poppy Gallagher   

Whether you are a business owner and have had to be on the receiving end of a customer complaint or have been the dissatisfied customer who had no choice but to form a complaint after having to deal with poor customer service, the process can be an unpleasant one to deal with. Customer dissatisfaction can be caused by a number of different reasons and some of which are really out of their employee's control. Despite this fact, there are steps that you as an employer can be taken to reduce the amount of complaints you receive, which is particularly important if you're a young company looking to grow and establish yourself. Employees in any industry should look at the following tips for reducing customer complaints and thus increasing customer satisfaction.

1. Remove the need for complaints

Prevention is the best way to deal with the cost of handling grievances. Although the initial cost of sending your customer facing employees on customer service courses may be encouraging, the long term gains of a well trained workforce will pay off in the end. Many training institutes offer training in all areas of customer service for individuals at all stages in their career.

2. Improve internal communication

Communication is key, not least when it comes to your employees. Communicating often and thoroughly with your employees in all departments can help catch problems and create solutions before your customers have the chance to complain. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg has been recently reported to being very hands on with production and catches out any errors before his users do. No matter what level you are in an organisation, it's very important to take initiative and play a key role in making improvements.

3. Don't make promises if you can't follow through

If your company can't deliver on a promise, you will lose their trust and that will also result in a loss of loyalty. Ensure any promises you make are deliverable and completed in a timely fashion. If you fail to do this, you are giving customers more ammunition to complain.

4. Log all complaints

By tracking and logging complaints, none of your employees or co-workers can claim to not know about any complaints that are being made. Every complaint your company gets should have a case file and come with potential problem solving options to eliminate further, similar complaints. Making other employees aware of complaints being made also helps them to learn how to avoid and deal with them cropping up again.

5. Open up new channels of communication

Social media is a business's best friend when it comes to customers; from gaining recognition and reaching a wider audience to dealing with any issues. Over a third of customers have been known to use social media to make complaints. Using social media to monitor interactions between you and customers can help predict problems before they escalate into complaints. Using particular feedback specific systems that certain social media sites offer, such as Twitter's 'Twitter Polls', will enable you to gain feedback quickly and easily.