Customer complaints are inevitable, no matter how streamlined your business. They must always be acknowledged and dealt with in a timely, empathetic and comprehensive way. By ignoring or dismissing complaints, you are effectively telling the customer that you don’t value their opinion.

Complaint management can be a time-consuming and frustrating process. However, by developing an efficient system, complaints can be resolved quickly and easily.

Firstly, you should embrace complaints

The most successful, customer-focused companies embrace complaints, because complaints are unsolicited feedback. A complaint can be raw, direct interaction from a customer and it should be treated as a valuable source of information about your business.

When a customer first makes a complaint, take a step back

Customers don’t just complain to be rude, they complain because they’ve experienced a problem with the way your business operates and they’re trying to tell you about it. Keep comprehensive records of all complaints, from the initial problem to the eventual solution.

Give the customer your full attention and listen to the whole problem before responding

In general, customers complain because they feel they’ve been treated unfairly or had no response. Nobody likes being ignored, especially when they’ve paid money for a product or service. If you choose to run any promotions ensure you have adequate resources to assist with the increased workload.

Try to understand                                                                                          

Try to remain calm when dealing with a complaint, even if the customer becomes irate or confrontational. Make sure you are consistent with how you deal with your patients and take the time to understand their issue and be responsive to what they have to say. Once the customer has aired their grievance, you should immediately give a sincere apology that they have had to make a complaint.

Always use your initiative when dealing with complaints

This could be simple; it may be giving them something back. Sometimes imagining that your patient is a family member, or putting yourself in their shoes may make you deal with the complaint more effectively. Always remember customers never want to hear excuses, and sometimes they may follow a request for compensation.

However, never pass the customer around from person to person

This is vital for the customer; you do not want to frustrate them further by making them repeat themselves regarding their issue. If the same person is processing the complaint it can be dealt with more effectively and the customer will have a more professional impression when dealing with one person.  Having concise notes will also benefit the person who is dealing with the complaint, which may head off any complaint or claim before hand, if it is conducted in the right way. Lastly, all customer-facing members should be trained to deal with complaints.