Handling tricky situations

Handling tricky situations

Not every day will be plain sailing, things do go wrong, but what do you do when the going gets tough?

This module looks at how to handle complaints or difficult situations well, strengthening your relationship with the customer.

Summary

Not everything is directly within your control and there are times when despite your best effort’s our customers will make a complaint. How you handle the complaint or issue can make or break the relationship with that customer. If handled well, it will influence your customer’s perception of you and the wider team by showing we really care.

When a customer complains, what they are looking for is a solution to a problem or situation that they are facing. They want you to take ownership of the issue on their behalf, what they don’t want is for you to tell them who is to blame. There are some simple steps that if followed can ensure that complaints are resolved effectively.

  1. Welcome the complaint and consider your body language
  2. Listen attentively and don’t interrupt or assume
  3. Summarise the facts and acknowledge how they are feeling
  4. Consider the customer’s suggestion or offer alternative options
  5. Act to resolve the problem or prevent it from happening again

Take a look at some of the golden rules under each of The Six Pillars for Customer Experience Excellence that help deal with tricky situations

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What you need

  1. A few examples of the type of complaints you have received recently, or issues faced by our customers.
  2. A printout of the exercise sheet for each person.
  3. Have ‘The Six Pillars’ to hand to weave some of the golden rules into the team conversations.
  4. Have what this module looks at and video on the screen ready to play.
  5. Room for the team to be together in small groups.

Exercise

Dealing with a complaint or an issue can be challenging for us but if the team follow those simple steps above, they have the chance to turn the situation around and keep our customers happy. In this exercise the team will work in small groups to review a common customer complaint or issue and the steps they should take to resolve the problem.

Download exerciseDownload exercise sheet
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