Tips On Handling Customer Escalations Like A Pro

It is Saturday afternoon, you were excited to sport the edgy and newest pair of football studs at the Sunday league which is only half a day away; now you don’t have a pair of shoes, the one you ordered came in damaged, and you don’t have the money to buy another. How frustrated will you be? Buyers are usually hopeful of service and don’t expect things to go south; especially when they are dealing with a reputed company.

Now, the likely situation is that you will complain to the retailer; it can go down either of the two ways. The company apologizes profusely, listens to your problem, sends a replacement to be delivered on the same day, and even provide you with a discount coupon for the next time depending upon the company’s style; in another scenario, company apologizes, listens to your problem without being empathetic, offers to take the order back and send a replacement to be delivered within the next few days, might also offer a discount coupon.

Which situation is more likely to turn you away from the company forever? It would be the second situation. Why? Because they failed to fulfill your expectations and didn’t take your hope of playing Sunday football seriously at all. The first scenario is more likely to pacify the customer and earn their loyalty because the customer’s hope of playing the next day was taken seriously and all efforts were put towards fulfilling that expectation.

Handling escalations isn’t easy; it takes intelligence, quickness in action, and a focus on customer satisfaction. Not many are adept at it and many lose customers over it. Here are a few tips to make sure that you can perfectly handle escalations:

1. Heart-to-heart With the Customer

Often, you will find customers complaining somewhere about the lines of ‘nobody cares about my problem’. That is story universal in customer issue escalations. The customer must be provided with an experience that shows him/her that the company cares for them and values their purchase a lot. There are high chances that a customer will remain loyal to you for many years to come if you resolve the escalation in a superb manner. To do that, you should start off with extending an empathetic ear to the customer’s problems.

2. Realizing the Customer’s Importance

If a customer has raised an escalation, look deep into the customer’s history and see the business he/she has given you. If the customer is a regular one, you will certainly have to go head over heels to resolve the escalation. It takes almost 6 times the money to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one. For this, you will need a CRM tool to analyze the customer’s history and the actions various departments took each time there was an issue. You will need to coordinate between different departments to resolve a customer issue. Small businesses and start-ups don’t have the required CRM software, or the processes integrated to resolve customer issues on a fast basis. It is better to consider the option of customer service outsourcing if that is the case.

3. Turn To The Decision-Maker

Companies small and medium often shy away from returning the amount in a botched-up order. It so happens that processes are entangled, and companies exercise every option before going for the last resort i.e. refunding the order. A complaint comes to the representative, he/she forwards it to the operations department, then it goes to a manager, which then takes the decision and contacts transportation service or finance department depending upon the resolution. This is a delay and waste of time for the customer; resulting in frustration and eventual turning away from the customer. It is much better to hire a call center outsourcing company that understands the intricacies of botched-up orders and fast issue-resolutions.