Slick complaint resolution tactics

Complaints and negative customer experiences should be taken seriously, although the “customer is always right” is not always true, as anyone in customer service will tell you, but their feedback is invaluable.

Surveys provide a measurable platform with which companies can address complaints - not just the complaints themselves, but the root causes – a survey can highlight problems with specific customer service personnel or contact centre agents, reduce risks to brand reputation and introduce transparency.

Better yet, surveys can help in preempting the escalation of complaints into the social media environment: few companies have managed to break down the channel silos to include social media with their traditional platforms, online and voice. Worse still, these social media platforms may be outsourced to third-party marketers, so if complaints emerge on Facebook or Twitter, it can take way too long for those complaints to be escalated to the company in order for the company to resolve them – and all of that within a public environment before an audience of other customers – a formidable wall of negativity.

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Surveys give the customer a voice: they can rate specific agents (some online platforms provide the names and photos of agents to help personify them) in terms of levels of service, satisfaction in contact resolution and also provide space for insights that may never otherwise have been made available.

The insights can be varied: should a particular agent receive consistent poor feedback, that agent’s manager can then find out if the agent needs more training or product knowledge, or if the processes that deliver information to the agent are flawed in some way. The resolutions to these problems would be training, improved quality monitoring and, potentially, adaptations to processes that allow information to flow to the agent and, if necessary, the back office.

The agent may be coming under fire for a process beyond his control: for example, if a customer wants to update bank details, the agent may not have the authority to access the platform where that takes place, so he’ll have to refer the call. If this back office process is not measured, poor response times could be directly attributed to the agent, when in fact the problem occurs elsewhere. The feedback gathered from customer surveys can uncover such inefficiencies and be fed directly into the business to drive service and customer experience improvements.

Brand reputation is essential for any company, so if the customer is offered a space in which to complain, it helps that company to ensure that they’re being accountable to customers, something customers have come to expect.

They don’t just help to resolve complaints and potential problem areas, surveys can also shine a spotlight on things companies are doing right – great agents, great service delivery, great products – so this helps to set the standard and expectation for excellent service. They can be a personal interaction with customers that help to build brand reputation and customer loyalty.