10 Steps to Building Customer Loyalty with Angry Customers
Robert Moment
February 04, 2008
There´s nothing worse for business than an angry customer—and nothing more important than rebuilding the trust they´ve lost in you as a business owner. An angry customer doesn´t have to be a lost one: you can rebuild their trust in your business and ensure they return by implementing easy changes and taking pains to correct what went wrong in the first place.
The first step to building loyalty with angry customers happens long before they become upset. Here are some pre-emptive measures you can take:
1. Better Training—for both you and your employees, solid customer service training and thorough knowledge of products and policies are absolutely essentially. The more prepared you are for problems, the better you´ll be able to deal with them when they occur.
2. Building Rapport—no matter what type of business you´re in, you know that the relationship you build with your customers has to start off on the right foot. Building a solid rapport from the outset will help diffuse the situation later on if errors or disputes occur.
3. Service Orientation—more than anything else, your customers want to be treated right. If you make customer service your focus above all other things, you´ll ensure their loyalty above all else.
Next, and perhaps most importantly, are steps you can take while you have the disgruntled customer in the store or on the phone:
4. Good Communication—whether it´s you or your employees doing the talking, you need to make good communication with an angry customer priority number one. Proper explanation of policy and calm discussion of demands and solutions will win the day and the customer—make sure you convey above all else the company´s commitment to satisfaction.
5. Listening Attentively—just as important as communication with the customer is really listening to what they have to say. Nine times out of ten the customer has an idea in their mind of what they would like to see as a resolution: take the time to listen to what they want and work towards a solution together.
6. One-on-One Attention—nothing infuriates an angry customer more than being shuffled around from one employee or operator to the next. If there is any sort of dispute or problem, make sure the customer receives the one-on-one attention necessary to solve it.
Finally, there are a number of things you can do after a complaint or dispute to get your relationship with the customer back on track:
7. Damage Control—if there are any fires still burning, it´s up to you to put them out. When you receive a complaint or deal with an angry customer, take steps to rectify the situation immediately.
8. Follow-up—just as important as dealing with the immediate problem is doing the leg work to make sure things stay fixed. Following-up may mean paperwork, or a courtesy phone call—but you´ll be amazed just much your once disgruntled-customer will appreciate it.
9. Adding Value—of course we all know that the easiest way to make anyone happy is to save them money. Beyond the requisite refunds of credits due to the customer, make sure they receive future promotion or sales information and any discounts or coupons you can spare: it will go a long way towards proving your commitment to them.
10. Preventing Future Problems—chances are if something went wrong with one customer, it could go wrong again. Take the time to examine the customer´s complaint and see what you can do to prevent if happening again.
It might be a matter of implementing one of the pre-emptive steps mentioned above, or it may be a sign of larger problems within your company—either way it´s up to you to get to the heart of it to prevent more angry customers in the future.
The first step to building loyalty with angry customers happens long before they become upset. Here are some pre-emptive measures you can take:
1. Better Training—for both you and your employees, solid customer service training and thorough knowledge of products and policies are absolutely essentially. The more prepared you are for problems, the better you´ll be able to deal with them when they occur.
2. Building Rapport—no matter what type of business you´re in, you know that the relationship you build with your customers has to start off on the right foot. Building a solid rapport from the outset will help diffuse the situation later on if errors or disputes occur.
3. Service Orientation—more than anything else, your customers want to be treated right. If you make customer service your focus above all other things, you´ll ensure their loyalty above all else.
Next, and perhaps most importantly, are steps you can take while you have the disgruntled customer in the store or on the phone:
4. Good Communication—whether it´s you or your employees doing the talking, you need to make good communication with an angry customer priority number one. Proper explanation of policy and calm discussion of demands and solutions will win the day and the customer—make sure you convey above all else the company´s commitment to satisfaction.
5. Listening Attentively—just as important as communication with the customer is really listening to what they have to say. Nine times out of ten the customer has an idea in their mind of what they would like to see as a resolution: take the time to listen to what they want and work towards a solution together.
6. One-on-One Attention—nothing infuriates an angry customer more than being shuffled around from one employee or operator to the next. If there is any sort of dispute or problem, make sure the customer receives the one-on-one attention necessary to solve it.
Finally, there are a number of things you can do after a complaint or dispute to get your relationship with the customer back on track:
7. Damage Control—if there are any fires still burning, it´s up to you to put them out. When you receive a complaint or deal with an angry customer, take steps to rectify the situation immediately.
8. Follow-up—just as important as dealing with the immediate problem is doing the leg work to make sure things stay fixed. Following-up may mean paperwork, or a courtesy phone call—but you´ll be amazed just much your once disgruntled-customer will appreciate it.
9. Adding Value—of course we all know that the easiest way to make anyone happy is to save them money. Beyond the requisite refunds of credits due to the customer, make sure they receive future promotion or sales information and any discounts or coupons you can spare: it will go a long way towards proving your commitment to them.
10. Preventing Future Problems—chances are if something went wrong with one customer, it could go wrong again. Take the time to examine the customer´s complaint and see what you can do to prevent if happening again.
It might be a matter of implementing one of the pre-emptive steps mentioned above, or it may be a sign of larger problems within your company—either way it´s up to you to get to the heart of it to prevent more angry customers in the future.
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