Follow Up for Excellent Customer Service
As some of you know, I work as a Client Satisfaction Manager for a B2B software company. This means that I spend my days handling complaints/escalations, getting customer issues resolved, fixing broken processes and coaching/training staff.
Before that, I spent well over a decade at different levels of support organisations.
What have I learned about handling complaints?
Follow Up
Once you’ve received the complaint, apologised and determined a course of action, following up is the most important / best thing you can do.
No one likes to be left in the dark, so communicate.
- Call the customer and tell them what you’re doing;
- If you don’t have anything new, call them anyway!
- If it’ll take more than a day or two, decide with the customer on the frequency of updates AND FOLLOW IT;
- Update the members of your team that are involved;
- Keep your management apprised (especially important when resolution is taking a long time)
The Easiest Mistake to Correct
Don't let customers think they've fallen in
Not following up is the mistake that I see most often when dealing with customers. And, it’s the easiest to fix!
I often get the response that if employees don’t have time to do the work, how can they find time to follow up?
Communicating with your customer about any issue allows you to identify the priority and plan your work. In many cases (most), the client will agree with what ever you propose as a time line; he/she simply wants to know that it hasn’t fallen into a black hole and that it’s actually being worked on.
So take 5 minutes and call that customer, reassure them. You might even save yourself some work and stress.
Cheers!
Eric
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photo credit: thebadastronomer
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Comments
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Great post. What I have run into so many times is the misconception of not following up and providing a status when a solution is not readily available.
As you mentioned in your post call them back anyway. Reaching out to customers with a status helps keep customers at ease while letting them know you are actively working towards a solution.
Best Regards,
James
James Sorensen´s last blog ..Investing in Customer Service Starts with Employees