Out of every few customer experiences that give you thumbs ups, one is bound to go out of hand, for many reasons. Taking measures to identify and control them makes good business sense and can save your business reputation and relationships with clients. In order to foresee and maintain a pre-established solution for these challenging situations, you must first teach your staff essential customer service skills and train them prior to such situations in a smart way to make sure they can be relied on for damage control. Here are a few difficult situations that usually occur and immediate solutions to help solve them without additional loss:
Take a scenario where a customer has placed an order at your bakery for a birthday cake, which you have been unable to deliver, for whatever reasons. He/she now threatens to spread negative word of this incident on social media and wishes to boycott your business. In order to recover from the situation and control potential damage that can be done to your relationship with other customers by word of mouth, your CSRs should be patient and polite in dealing with the frustrated client, should explain to him/her the reasons for the inconvenience and offer a consolation giveaway. For example, a complimentary box of cupcakes or a cake with flower bouquet and a thoughtful card in order to show empathy and a promise to make sure that this will not happen again.
Every business dreams of overcrowded stores during sales. It is important to acquire the manpower, resources and management skills that are needed for these events to go smoothly and without any problems. Two or three days before announcing a discount or a clearance sale, you should assign extra manpower to control the situation if more than the anticipated number of customers show up. In order to avoid things from going out of hand, for example, customers fighting on one product, potential shoplifting; the store doors should close after the maximum accommodation number has been reached. The number of representatives and staff members should be sufficient enough to handle a haphazard situation should it take place. Speedy and efficient service at the cash counters should be ensured as a precautionary measure to avoid long waiting lines.
In return for their trust and money, customers expect and are entitled to quality. There may be rare possibilities that one out of many products is faulty. The angry and disappointed client who purchases the product must be handled tactfully in order to reclaim the relationship and maintain good business reputation. The right way of fixing such an issue would be for the manager to communicate with him/her, apologize on behalf of the company for the issue and should then not only refund the money, but offer additional service to make up for the unpleasant experience that he/she has gone through. For example, offer something extra or extend the warranty on the product you replace.
Many times when interacting with multiple customers at the same time, miscommunication can occur. A CSR might get distracted or preoccupied and then misinterpret what the customer is looking for. When there is lack of a proper communication medium, the communication lag often leads to misunderstanding, which has the probability of resulting into a disaster. For example, if a client asks for free delivery over a phone call and the CSR assures that the delivery is possible but forgets to mention the charges, the annoyed and frustrated customer will be hard to handle and here’s where damage control techniques come into play. The CSR should be very polite and patient while explaining why the communication gap existed and should offer an instant and agreeable solution.
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