Angry, upset or dissatisfied customers can be intimidating to deal with. Many brands try to avoid or ignore this kind of conflict, hoping that it will go away. This is a dangerous way to approach a dissatisfied customer who, in this digital era, could easily create some very negative feeling about your business online. It’s also a lost opportunity to convert someone who has had a bad experience into a happy customer who could go out and be an effective brand ambassador.

 

Why the customer is always right

When customers make complaints it tends to be because there is a genuine issue. So, if you’re seeing a rise in negative feedback or receiving a lot of complaining correspondence it’s usually worth looking into why that might be. Often, customers may have identified an issue you just haven’t seen, or a problem that isn’t obvious from where you are. That’s why it often pays to listen to complaints, evaluate whether they might be useful and then take steps to convert angry customers into your biggest fans.

  • Make sure complaints are met with empathy. An empathetic response to an angry customer will almost always start to diffuse any negative feeling. It demonstrates that you care about their experience and how they feel. Key to this is listening without interruption and perhaps even relating to the issue with something similar that you have experienced.

  • Accept responsibility when something has gone wrong. It can be tempting to try and find a scapegoat within your business and blame them when you’re trying to deal with an angry customer. For example, if their order is badly packed or missing items you might feel like you want to point the finger at whoever handled the packing. However, this doesn’t solve the problem for the customer and may make them feel that you’re trying to avoid responsibility. So, if any part of your business is at fault, simply accept full responsibility.

  • Offer solutions not excuses. The most effective way to calm an angry customer is to offer a solution to the problem that has made them angry in the first place. How can you make them feel like they have been fairly dealt with and that they have still come away with a good deal? That might be offering a refund or replacement item, providing store credit or a future discount. Being generous (within reason) at this stage can make all the difference to how a customer feels when they walk away.

  • Be prepared for complaints to arise. Mistakes happen in business and, whether they are your fault or just bad luck, they can still negatively impact on brand reputation if not dealt with. It’s far better to be ready for complaints and have a strategy in place for how to deal with them than to hope you’ll never have to handle an angry customer and then be completely unprepared when you do.

Conflicts with customers offer opportunities for brands, not just to find a positive resolution to the situation and learn from complaints, but to create loyal brand advocates too.

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