Tips for dealing with customers include being polite, listening to their needs, and adding extra flourishes to emphasize customer care. Dealing with upset customers requires being polite, listening carefully, and correcting the complaint if possible. Good customer service is important to make customers feel valued and employees should be trained in handling unhappy customers.
Tips for dealing with a customer are usually broken down into dealing with the average customer and how to deal with unsatisfied customers. The two areas have similar roots, as both require that those interacting with customers be extremely polite and courteous, even when a customer is not. They also have similar goals which is to go the extra mile to make sure a customer feels satisfied with the store or the service. It is probably not possible to satisfy all customers and it is especially difficult to help those with grievances.
It’s much easier to please customers who aren’t upset. People who interact directly with customers can increase satisfying satisfaction by listening to what their customers want and need, being polite, not using pushy sales tactics, and attempting to add extra flourishes that emphasize customer care.
Further success, as a method of handling a client, doesn’t have to take long. It could be as simple as checking someone into a dressing room to ask if they need any more sizes, or offering cold or hot drinks for customers waiting for a service to complete. Providing groceries to a car, remembering customers’ names, and being honest about the limitations of any service or commodity are all good things.
While good manners, ethical sales tactics, and a few extras are helpful for the average customer, they don’t satisfy the upset person. The tips for dealing with an unhappy customer are slightly different, although the first two things a person should do when dealing with one is to be polite and listen very carefully. The upset client is known to want to be heard about the issue at hand, and any display of indifference could intensify the person’s anger.
Whenever possible, the best advice for dealing with an upset customer is to correct the complaint. Stores with generous return policies might simply offer store credit or an exchange if defective merchandise was purchased, or service industries might discount sales or offer complementary services if people are dissatisfied with the quality. Not all companies have these policies, although it has been shown that companies that do often get reputations for excellent customer service. Some employees are limited by less generous policies, or the customer may not have the necessary items (such as receipts) that make it possible to rectify a claim.
If policies are stringent, it’s especially important that the person attempting to handle a client doesn’t make any promises that can’t be kept. Instead, after hearing the customer’s complaint and delicately stating the policy, employees should consider calling someone with more authority, such as a manager. In most sales and service industries this is an expected part of the manager’s job. Managers may also have greater authority to override rules if they believe customers have a legitimate complaint.
Good customer service makes the customer feel valued and important. Indifference or bad manners of employees do not create this impression. All employees should be trained in how to make customers feel welcome and cared for, and the training should include ways to handle an unhappy customer.
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