Customer Complaints and How To Handle Them

Every online sellers must have faced this once in a while: Your customer coming back to you, unhappy and complaining about the purchase.

How should you handle customer complaints? What action do you need to take?

Ecommerce is a great business model that allow buyers to shop anytime, anywhere. But, as you’re dealing with more buyers on a daily basis, the human factor is the thing that can influence your venture heavily. Especially when we cannot know how each order from your store will end up.

Each person behave differently, and they will react differently to the same thing. While some buyers stay patient and calm when problem occurs, the other ones might not take them so lightly. You will definitely cross path with annoyed customers!

Therefore, if a customer’s complaint wasn’t dealt with properly, the most irritable of your clients may easily take their anger elsewhere. Which is very bad for your online store reputation. Plenty of various social media and public forums allow people to leave their comments and reviews about services and businesses.

If you don’t want negative feedback to ruin your business, you should be prepared to keep the situation under control.

We know it’s not always an easy task, especially if you receive messages which are offensive. But keep calm! We’re going to list some ways for you to cope with any sort of customer complaints to keep you online store safe.

1. Don’t give in to your emotions while handling customer complaints

We always say the wrong thing when we are angry, don’t you agree?

Customer messages which are offensive can really get into your nerve. And it is always tempting to fight back and respond in a similar language. But, doing so will only make things worst than it’s already are. You need to hold back from this.

Your customer is on their boiling point, and you should calm them down. Do not add fuel to the flame with your emotional responses, or else it would be almost impossible to retrieve the situation.

Hold your fist, bite on a stick and get a grip on yourself even if these customer complaints are insulting you personally.

2. Don’t say they’re wrong

Customer is always right!

Well…Not always.

Yet, even if the fact that customers are wrong, don’t be placing your focus there. Don’t put the blame on them in explicit way. It’s the last thing they want to hear.

3. Be polite with your clients

Even the most aggressive clients will try to keep their temper when they’re treated with respect and kindness.

The trick is to be grateful to your clients for making you aware of the problems. Make them understand that you’re ready to listen to their every question and don’t forget to apologise for the inconvenience.

You can use phrases like:

Thank you for contacting us & sorry for the temporary inconvenience.

Kindly let us know if you have any questions or if there’s any way we can help you.

It is our utmost regret that you have to go through this, and please accept our sincere apology.

Be professional about it as these will show your clients that you care.

4. Don’t argue with customers

Many buyers are afraid of being scammed when shopping online. The thing you should work towards while handling complaints is to eliminate customer suspicion. Convince them that you’re on their side and the problem is just a misunderstanding.

If you start denying your fault, you’ll only strengthen your clients’ concerns. So, instead of arguing, admit the problem exists and promise to get to the bottom of it even if your customers are obviously wrong.

By doing so, you calm them down. And in return, that will allow you to identify the real reason of the issue.

5. Offer a solution to customer complaints

Then comes the most important part – offering a solution.

You may be wondering – “How can I find a solution if the buyer is wrong?”

Well.

As a start, help them understand that there is no actual mistake on your side. Explain what has actually happened, and make it clear that the problem isn’t as bad as it seem.

For example, your buyer are furious about not receiving their package for a long time and could not track the whereabouts of the package. But, in fact, it’s just the logistic company who hasn’t updated the tracking information yet.

In this situation, you can point out to your clients that logistic companies don’t always update the info in the real-time. That being said, there is nothing to worry about. Ensure them that you have checked with the logistic and that their package is safe with them and on the way. Then, suggest checking the tracking code again later. This will clarify the situation and your customer will feel much more comfortable with their package.

6. Make it up to them

Besides unjustified customer complaints, there’s a chance where the fault in on your part. After all, we are just human. And human make mistakes.

Fortunately, majority of them are fixable.

That being said, if it’s proven that the products are damaged when they reach your buyer, you’d better make a refund.

Yet, if you’ve mixed up colors and sent, you can try and persuade the customer to keep it.

But, both of the mentioned situations require some special measures to be taken. To make sure your customers have a positive shopping experience, try offering them some bonuses along with your sincere apology.

It don’t have to be big, it could be some free item from your shop or a discount coupon on future purchases. With this, it’s going to stop them from spreading negative comments about your shop.