What to do if you have a sud­den increase in cus­tomer complaints?

At the first sign of an influx, increase staff (over­time, engag­ing part timers, bor­row­ing cross-trained staff from other depart­ments). An upset cus­tomer will become more irri­tated if forced to wait on hold long.

How do you track down the problem?

First, inform your reps to alert the man­ager when they see an unusual com­plaint trend — even if it’s just two or three of a new issue. If every rep had three of the same new com­plaint in an hour, indi­vid­u­ally they may not think that is much but col­lec­tively it can be colossal.

Then the man­ager should tell the other reps to apprise him or her of any com­plaints on this issue to try to iso­late the prob­lem. This point per­son may need to con­tact some of the cus­tomers to fur­ther inves­ti­gate the problem.

Take action imme­di­ately. Don’t wait. Make this your top pri­or­ity as it will affect many other cus­tomers if you let it languish.

In 1994 Intel got lots of bad press because of an obscure error that was caused by their Pen­tium chip when com­put­ing com­plex math prob­lems. They essen­tially said, “This is such a rare instance we’re not really con­cerned about it.” But their lack­adaisi­cal atti­tude cre­ated much con­sumer ire and the finan­cial impact on the com­pany was sig­nif­i­cant. So don’t let a prob­lem fester.

Engage other depart­ments who may be con­tribut­ing to the prob­lem or could help with a solution.

Are there dif­fer­ences in what to do if the com­plaints are on the Inter­net or not on the Internet?

In either instance, you need to increase staff and mon­i­tor the wait times no mat­ter how the customer’s con­cern comes to you.

With online inquiries, you can craft some boiler plate responses for the reps to paste into the emails. How­ever, if pos­si­ble they should add some­thing per­sonal, like the person’s name if it was given, and some­thing spe­cific to their prob­lem. Also, always give the cus­tomer a phone num­ber to call if they pre­fer. It can be annoy­ing to feel that the per­son respond­ing to the email doesn’t really under­stand your problem.

With callers, you can dis­trib­ute a script or bul­leted talk­ing points to help the call cen­ter staff.

Any dif­fer­ences in what to do in dif­fer­ent indus­tries? How do you address the problem?

Some indus­tries have more urgency than oth­ers, but all cus­tomers want their prob­lem resolved now. So don’t think you can post­pone the inves­ti­ga­tion and resolution.

Above all, com­mu­ni­cate with your cus­tomers. Let the cus­tomer know that you appre­ci­ate him or her telling you of the prob­lem — even if it’s the hun­dredth such noti­fi­ca­tion. Tell them you are work­ing to resolve the sit­u­a­tion as quickly as pos­si­ble. Ask if they’d like to be emailed updates and noti­fied when the sit­u­a­tion has been resolved.

Then set up a noti­fi­ca­tion list that you send updates to reg­u­larly. For some indus­tries that would be hourly. For oth­ers, daily. Even if you don’t have a solu­tion yet, send an email telling them you are still work­ing on it and mak­ing progress. Your cus­tomers will appre­ci­ate being kept in the loop.

Rebecca L. Mor­gan, CSP, CMC, spe­cial­izes in cre­at­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions for work­place effec­tive­ness chal­lenges. She's appeared on 60 Min­utes, Oprah, the Wall Street Jour­nal, National Pub­lic Radio and USA Today. Rebecca is the best­selling author of 25 books, includ­ing "Calm­ing Upset Cus­tomers" and "Pro­fes­sional Sell­ing." She is an exem­plary resource who part­ners with you to accom­plish high ROI on your key-talent devel­op­ment projects. For infor­ma­tion on her ser­vices, books, and resources, con­tact her at 408÷998−7977, Rebecca@RebeccaMorgan.com, http://www.RebeccaMorgan.com/.

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