In running any business, you will definitely come across with customers complaint. Especially in e-commerce business, you might face a lot of displease and irate customers everyday via comment, rating, Q&A, chat and even phone call.

Do you ever come across with customer who complaint about shipment delay even during holiday? Do they continue to blame you even after you explained to them? And even after you give them all sort of solution, they still angry and insist do not want to retract their bad rating?

In fact, despite how good your services or products, some people will still find something to complaint. However, you can’t just ignore the complaint and hope it will solve eventually or it might ruin your reputation and obstruct you from getting new customers.

Thus, what can you do when you receive a complaints that are seemingly unfixable? Here we are sharing 4 tips for you to turn complaint into opportunity:

Reply Promptly With Friendly Tone

Even though there are still unsatisfied customers no matter what you do, good services still take a big role. No matter how ignorant your customers is, respond politely and reply as soon as possible will always avoid worst scenario happen.

Emotional reply will only leave bad impression to the customer and any others customers who happen to saw it.

*Good example of fast respond with friendly tone

*Bad example, emotional reply and without stating any reason why the services cannot be fulfilled.

Always remember delaying will only make it worse, customers who are already frustrated will only get more irritated if they didn’t get your respond promptly.

Studies found that these few simple actions have big impact on retaining customers and always turn bad situation into good one.

Apologize First Then Provide Solution

Instead of giving excuses, a genuine apology will more likely calm your customers and show how much you care about them. Report found that customers are more satisfy with resolving problem with an apology than merely resolving problem for them.

However, simply saying sorry isn’t going to solve the problem, genuine apologies on your shortage and provide satisfying solution are the key of delighting the customers in this bad situation.

*Good example, apologies even it is not completely your fault and always provide solution after apologies.

*Bad example, buyer do not feel your responsibility after sales service.

Focus on Making It Better

Although some complaints seem hopeless to solve but it doesn’t mean there is nothing you can do. Even the actual result might be the same, customers’ perception will be more positive if you try to do something for them.

From our experience, some seller did come across with difficult situation such as customer brought a defective product and request replacement but unfortunately it was the last stock from seller.

It seem like nothing can be done but in the end buyer agree to retract the bad rating. Seem impossible? But the seller success with just some extra effort.

Here are some techniques these sellers using in order to change customers’ perception:

1. Acknowledge the problem and show that you are ready to help
2. Provide few option such as order a new one to replace and suggest similar product while indicate the delivery time to demonstrate you are taking effort and promising.
3. Refund is always your last resort if nothing can satisfy the buyer. Do not suggest refund until there is nothing can be done in order to solve the issue.

Take This Opportunity To Review & Reflect

Remember to always thanks your customers who point out your mistake, as this can be an opportunity to improve yourself and also show you listen and respect their opinion. Take times to review what you can do better and prevent making the same mistake again.

Here are some common mistakes that made by most of the sellers but some of them is actually avoidable with better preparation:

1. Delay shipment
2. Out of stock
3. Product defect
4. Slow response/ unreachable

However there are also some issues that are hard to prevent or avoid. Therefore, manage customers expectation beforehand will be a best choice to avoid complaints. For example:

1. If there might be delivery delay due to holiday or stock shortage, mention the expected delivery date on the product page.
2. Sometimes outstanding image can lead to higher expectation. If the image will give customers different expectation to the actual product, changing the image might avoid unnecessary complaints.

Improve Customers Experience Will Never Let You Down

Study found that good customer service have 3 times more chances of retaining your customers and it become more important to acquire repeat buyers in this competitive e-commerce era as they are plenty of similar sellers also targeting your existing & potential customers.

Building good relationship with your customers along the way with good customer service practices and it will definitely bring your business into another level.

Should you have any enquiries, kindly contact us at storesupport@lelong.com.my