HOW TO TURN UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS INTO RAVING FANS! BY PHIL SALES Hands up everyone who likes dealing with unhappy customers. Chances are, that the thought of dealing with an unhappy customer is probably not very high on your list of preferred tasks for the day. Depending on your outlook, this prospect probably ranges from mildly unwelcome through to unpleasant, or even downright stressful. Moreover, the idea that any customer might be unhappy with our service is probably a bit of an anathema to us. Damn it all, don’t they know that we are doing our best to please them? Well, there is good news for anyone who has to deal with unhappy customers. The news is that not only are these people very valuable to us, they are also very easy to deal with, if we take the right approach. So, let’s start by being very clear about what we are referring to here. An unhappy customer is someone who has tried our product or service, and has encountered a problem. This problem may only be small, but it will have bothered the customer, and will be causing them some on-going grief. If the customer decides to come to us, then our job is incredibly simple. Rightly or wrongly, the customer is expecting us to resolve the problem. By analogy, we are the doctor, and the customer is the patient, who wants us to remove the pain. Unfortunately, research shows us that most unhappy customers will just walk away, taking their purchasing power elsewhere. I am a prime example of this behaviour, and I would suggest to you that many other people are the same. If I feel undervalued (and if I have a choice of other providers), then I will willingly give someone else an opportunity to win my business. The obvious issue here is that the unhappy customer is no longer our customer. We lose, and our competitors win without having to do a single thing. Less obvious, is the fact that our loss of a customer creates something called ‘customer churn’. In order to replace our lost customer, we have to acquire a replacement. Now, while we might like to think that we have people lining up at the door, ready to step into the breach, the reality is that acquiring customers is a costly exercise for most businesses. Rule-of-thumb wisdom says that it cost ten times more to find a replacement, than to keep the original. The news gets worse. Unhappy customers talk. They talk a lot. One person in seven will tell more than 20 people about a bad customer service experience (and, again, I am one of those people!) Unhappy spreads the word! So, what can we do about it? Well, plenty, as it turns out, provided that the customer has taken the time to complain to us! One popular approach to the problem is to apply the CLEAR model. C is for remaining calm and composed. There is no need for us to take a complaint personally, so disassociate yourself from emotional involvement. Remember that the customer is the one who is taking a massive emotional gamble by approaching us, so there is no need to add to the situation. L is for listen. This is our main go-to tool when dealing with any customer. Contrary to popular perception, the best customer service people are not ‘fast talkers’ who bombard us with facts, figures, and wellrehearsed sales patter. The best customer service people are good listeners, who focus on the customer’s concerns. Listening gives us an opportunity to understand the customer, and to ask important questions, in order to learn more. E is for empathise. This is our critical moment, when we either appreciate the September 2022 { 34 }
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