May 1967 — VOL. 48, No. 5 —
Dealing with Complaints
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Complaints made by customers are
a source of deep concern to management and of irritation to
workers.
It is human nature to take offence at a complaint when it
is known that everyone from the man or woman at the counter
up to the general manager of the firm is striving mightily
to see that no preventable cause for grievance is given. But
the clumsy handling of one small customer complaint by some
harassed or frightened clerk may upset the earnest efforts
of the whole organization.
Complaints, which may be looked upon as the expression of
dissatisfaction or a grievance or something that disturbs
a person, are to be taken seriously. Do not let their apparent
smallness, from your point of view, cause you to deal with
complaints in an offhand way. The grievance which may be almost
invisible to you looms large in the complainant's eyes. Even
if an error can be corrected by nothing more than a little
clerical dexterity, do not make it appear petty. Do it in
the spirit of attentive service.
Nine times out of ten an injury is exaggerated. Often it
is imaginary. Sometimes it is fabricated. Nevertheless it
must be handled in the best way in the interest of your firm.
Why worry, some may say, about the occasional complaint
when the great majority of customers says nothing? But just
as nine-tenths of an iceberg lies under the surface of the
sea, so this complaint may be a signal that there is much
trouble at hand, though unseen.
Smallness of a customer's business is not a good reason
for brushing off his complaint. Everyone who does business
with your company feels that his affairs are important, and
he is right. Careful handling of his complaint will build
loyal support for you, and that is excellent business building.
Preventing complaints
Established customers are a firm's best friends. The most
effective way to keep them is to give them no cause for complaint,
to establish your firm on that foundation stone of respect
and confidence which is best described by the word "dependability".
The ideal way to handle complaints is to prevent things
from happening that give rise to grievances, to be careful
to give no grounds for a justifiable cause of distress. By
thinking of the interest of the customer — a key principle
in all business — you are safeguarding also your firm's
interests.
Even if you were perfect, you would still receive complaints,
but the nearer to perfection your work is the fewer will be
the criticisms, and the better qualified you will be to deal
with them.
Every worker should know the drill pertaining to his own
job, but he should know more than is absolutely necessary
to his daily work. By understanding the policies of his company
and the connection of his department with others, he is able
to relate things, to get them into perspective, and this helps
enormously in handling problems.
He should also learn about customers' wants and expectations.
Satisfied customers are the backbone of business success,
but how can we satisfy them unless we know what they want?
It is true that people who have a high regard for your firm
are likely to be patient, but their long-suffering is not
the sort of thing on which to count for future trade or word-of-mouth
promotion of your company's goods or services.
Try to sense, before he reaches the point of making a complaint,
when a customer is dissatisfied. It is not enough to assure
yourself that you are pursuing a course beneficial to your
customer: you need to make it evident to him. Every contact
with the customer should make it clear that he is the central
figure.
Even in this age of thought manipulation there are many
old-fashioned people who believe that the best way to keep
old customers and win new customers is to give value for money,
intelligent service, and personal attention.
What a customer notices most is not your normal efficiency,
which he takes for granted, but the extra touch which demonstrates
your understanding of him, your genuine interest in his affairs,
your willingness to do what is best for him, and your knowledge
of how it can be done.
This extra touch is not a uniform put on for the occasion
of serving customers, but is your personality, made up of
many qualities: sincerity, the Golden Rule, knowledge, and
developed skill. Some people confuse mere geniality —
the "glad hand" approach — with personality. The smile
with which a customer is greeted must spring from the worker's
knowledge of the service he is in a position to give, confidence
in the integrity of his firm, and a feeling of pleasure because
he is able to help. Customers who are treated in this way
are unlikely to find cause for complaint.
Complaints are valuable
When complaints are made, they give you a chance for constructive
business building. This is not just a sugar-coated way of
describing a job that is generally held in disrespect. It
is wholly true. There is no more satisfying experience than
to turn a discontented customer into one who is made happy
by your attention, care and friendliness. Every complaint,
of whatever kind, can be handled so as to strengthen the goodwill
between the customer and your company.
Complaints are valuable because they direct attention to
possible areas of improvement in operating efficiency. Accept
it as a basic law of business life that there is always room
for improvement. A weak spot in your organization may be revealed
by a complaint, and this gives you the opportunity to improve
your product, your service and your public image. For these
reasons, complaints are welcomed by all but the most timid
of men.
We might go a step further and seek to uncover grievances.
When not given expression, dissatisfactions will build up
to the point of explosion. The principle of stepping out to
meet trouble rather than allowing it to gorge itself in secret,
pays dividends. When a customer sees that you are making efforts
to discover and rectify conditions that annoy him, he will
come over to your side.
About covering up
Too many people on all levels of operation in offices, stores
and factories run into an internal block when shown an error:
they buck and twist in an effort to avoid admitting it.
When a complaint is laid on your desk take it calmly, get
the facts into the open, and look at them judiciously. No
customer must ever be brushed off, stamped on, or made to
feel ridiculous. Flippancy is quite out of place. The customer
is not going to be satisfied if you tell him "To err is human"
and attempt to pass off his criticism with a shrug.
Dodges and devices reveal their spurious nature. If you
take cover behind such ambiguities as "company policy" or
"our customary methods" you irritate your customer. He doesn't
care about these obscure things: what he wants to know is
whether you are going to do something about his grievance.
If you slipped up, or your firm made a mistake, a straightforward
apology is in order. Don't hesitate to express regret without
any hemming or hawing. Then make an adjustment quickly, tactfully,
and in a friendly way. An adjustment made grudgingly might
almost as well not have been made at all, because a very important
object of the adjustment is to retain the customer's goodwill,
and deepen it if possible.
This is widely recognized, and it is practised by most of
the biggest concerns. Aboard a trans-Atlantic liner, a passenger
crunched down on a metal staple in her vegetable plate. The
waiter called the steward, who brought a gold-braided officer
who apologized. He ordered a steak dinner for all six passengers
at the table, turning a troublesome incident which could have
produced hurtful publicity into a festive occasion.
If delay in making an adjustment is necessary, explain why.
Hesitation in acknowledging receipt of a complaint is a capital
mistake. It gives the complainant time to brood over his grievance,
and hatches out a magnified sense of injury.
The acknowledgement should not show impatience or haste,
however unjust the complaint may appear. Even unreasonable
complaints should be handled with composure.
There are, of course, some fault-finding people who do precious
little thinking about what they say. They release their own
tension and unhappiness by criticizing others. But for all
except those who are totally unreasonable most business firms
go to great lengths to eliminate the cause and repair the
damage revealed by complaints.
Handling complaints
A company doing business with the public or with other firms
needs a policy with regard to complaints that makes clear
its desire to serve customers. The alternative is to lose
business.
No complex system need be worked up. Keep the procedure
simple. But supervisors should explain unmistakably to new
employees, and repeat at intervals, that the company desires
above all good treatment of customers. Then they should lay
down a few ground rules which make clear the area in which
each worker is responsible.
To make no provision for training employees in dealing with
complaints is a short-sighted, if not blind, policy. When
a complaint is made to a junior worker who has been properly
instructed he may often do whatever is necessary to adjust
it, and he should be required to do so. If the matter is beyond
his jurisdiction, or is too weighty for him to handle, he
should take it immediately to his superior.
A "brush-off" at the junior level means that the complainant
will write formally to someone in the high ranks of management.
Then the complaint becomes not only the original grievance
but an accusation of inefficiency against the junior and a
criticism of his supervisor.
Management should make clear that it desires every complaint
to be welcomed as a constructive service. Workers should show
sympathy with the person making the complaint, realizing that
he would not have gone to the bother if he had not felt that
he had been badly treated. Show willingness at once to investigate
thoroughly and to correct whatever is found to be wrong. Get
at the facts, learn exactly what happened and the extent of
the damage. Do not argue. Do not hint that the customer may
be dishonest or careless. When the customer is right, or partly
right, make the correction or adjustment promptly in the best
spirit. When the customer is wrong, explain the grounds for
your decision in simple terms. By so doing you show regret
while at the same time enlisting the customer's sense of justice.
This does not mean, obviously, that workers are to be wishy-washy
people, subscribing to the slogan that "the customer is always
right." It does mean that they do their best to adjust the
matter complained about, to straighten out the customer's
thinking in a nice way, and to send him away with a pleasant
feeling about their efficiency and their firm's good character.
Analyse complaints
The generality of complaints must be broken down into particulars
so as to be manageable. Perspective is important, so that
you see things in their relationships.
Be alert to pick the significant criticism out of all that
is said. Try to uncover the hidden content of the complaint,
if it is a serious one. It may be a disguise for something
else, for buried dissatisfactions or for enticing offers from
a competitive concern. Whether it is valid or invalid, relevant
or irrelevant, a grievance that is brought out into the open
is less dangerous than one that is not expressed.
Then look at yourself and your firm. Have you had any part
in creating the reason for this cause of distress? Has it
grown in size and intensity because of your neglect? Can it
be corrected without any additional irritations? Next, look
at the complaint itself. What are the causes? Can you find
a sound remedy that is fair to both your firm and your customer?
Talk over the complaint so that both you and the complainant
know exactly what is at stake.
The vital thing is to listen. Show respect for the other
fellow's point of view, even if you do not agree with it.
Quite often all that people want is to have their opinions
respected. This does not mean that you should concede that
the customer is right, but only that you should make him feel
that you can understand how he came to take his position.
Your listening assures him of your entire fairness, and predisposes
him to take a like attitude.
Then, when the facts are on the table, study the evidence.
Does it support the complaint? In Sales Trails, the
house organ of Bulman Bros., lithographers, Winnipeg, the
story is told of the defendant in a hard-fought civil case
who, after pleading "Not guilty" changed his plea to "Guilty"
toward the end of the trial. He told the surprised judge:
"I thought I was innocent, but at that time I hadn't heard
all the evidence against me."
Avoid being drawn into an argument. An argument is a contest
which someone must lose, and if you win you have forfeited
goodwill and probably antagonized a customer.
Handling a complaint does not call upon you to lash yourself
into a state of tension. If your case is good you do not
need passion to add force to it. We all suffer the urge
to "cut
down to size" the critic across the counter, but making him
lose face accomplishes nothing worth while and it leaves
us with a nasty taste in our mouths. The price is too high
for a momentary triumph.
Adopt a constructive attitude. Show that you respect the
complainant's position and are giving attention to his statements.
That makes it easier for him to come down off his perch and
agree with you.
By avoiding these things: argument, display of cleverness,
talking down to the critic, evidence of impatience, you will
find that many a request impossible to grant can be discussed
to the point where the conclusion is mutually satisfactory.
Compromise and courtesy
In handling complaints, astute workers make it a practice
to concede as much as possible, sacrificing details in order
to keep the matter always in the area of possible reconciliation
of the complainant's demands and the company's settlement.
What does conceding a point mean? It is very like priming
the farm pump. You give the dry pump a bucket of water so
that you may then draw as many buckets as you want.
If the remedy suggested to you is not acceptable, try to
suggest an alternative that will be fair without imposing
on your company. But leave the customer with his dignity.
It is possible, and nothing less should be our endeavour,
to refuse an unjust request with such consideration that we
erase the unpleasantness and resell our company as a desirable
place to do business.
Through it all we must be courteous. Another person's rudeness
must not be allowed to set the standard for our response.
Tact and courtesy lubricate any complaint situation. They
may not settle the affair, but they do help toward settlement.
There is an important personal bonus in being polite. Even
if you don't feel civil or cheerful in difficult circumstances,
the mere fact that you assume the appearance preserves your
dignity.
When presenting your reasoning about a complaint, be unfailingly
urbane and moderate. Modest presentation of your case is more
effective than is the making of loud noises. When Jupiter
started to thunder in the midst of an argument his opponent
said: "Now I know that you are wrong".
These considerations of manner and demeanour are important
to the success of anyone who seeks advancement in any business
or profession.
Tact, "the art of all arts", is made up of adroitness in
appreciating circumstances and acting accordingly; of consideration
for others; of skill in saying or doing what is most appropriate.
When your consideration and courtesy have brought about
a settlement: what now? If the complaint has been one of significance,
the worker or his supervisor should follow through after a
period to learn if the bad spot has been improved, and to
underline their continuing interest in the customer. The purpose
of the settlement was not only to silence the complainant,
but to display genuine interest in the customer. A recheck
is clear evidence of your firm's sincerity.
Writing letters
The handling of complaints by correspondence requires application
of the same principles as have been outlined for handling
complaints at the counter.
Under no circumstances does the writer of a letter permit
any evidence of resentment to creep into his reply. Like all
business correspondence, answers to complaints should be courteous,
cheerful, tactful, clear, complete, and brief — but not
brief to the point of disparaging your correspondent. In writing
about a complaint you are obligated to give a full, understandable
and civil explanation.
There is no fixed style for letters answering complaints,
any more than there is a style for complaint letters, than
which there are no more diverse types. Organize your ideas,
because clear thinking must precede clear writing. Think of
the sort of person to whom you are writing, and aim your reply
at him, not at his complaint.
Some people are afraid to be friendly in their letters.
They behave like computers writing to computers. They shy
away from amiability because they fear that they will be thought
of as "phonies" who have assumed a disguise for the occasion,
or they are afraid that they may commit themselves or their
firms.
Being friendly should not raise these scarecrows. It would
be a grave mistake to indulge in flowery language foreign
to our natural talk when we are answering a complaint letter;
but it is no mistake at all to incorporate in our letters
the warm, kindly, personal language that comes naturally to
us in person-to-person social contacts. Nor need friendliness
involve committing us to something undesirable. We can be
amiable without going beyond the logic of our purpose in writing.
When you have to say "No", do so in an obliging manner.
Begin your letter with some point of agreement. It may be
appreciation for submitting the complaint so clearly. Present
tactfully your firm's side of the case, thus giving your reader
a chance to prepare himself for the rejection. Tell why what
is requested cannot be done. Be specific and informative.
State the rejection clearly.
Even a "No" letter is a sales letter. It is selling the
idea of your firm's willingness to serve, and the belief in
your goodwill, as a foundation upon which satisfactory business
may be built.
On the other hand...
If the shoe is on the other foot, and you are in the position
of making a complaint about something, here are some points
to bear in mind.
Most firms know that it is to their advantage to rectify
errors in order to retain your business and to keep you as
a booster. Your letter need be nothing more than a clear,
complete and courteous statement of what has happened.
Assume that the company at fault did not intentionally make
the mistake. If you, as complainant, charge dishonesty or
poor management or bad business policy, you are almost sure
to arouse a feeling of opposition. You will be more likely
to obtain a satisfactory settlement by emphasizing a firm's
good nature, than by crushing it under a mountain of indignation.
It is sometimes advantageous to state your case and leave
it to the firm to suggest a solution or settlement. At the
best you may receive something more generous than you would
have claimed; at the worst you are back where you started,
with a new opportunity to present your claim.
Discretion and skill
The discreet and kindly and skilful handling of a customer
who complains is a constructive action in your company's interest,
and your own. Here is a test of your human relations knack
as well as of your job ability.
The principal points to practise are: acknowledge a complaint
at once, indicating your interest in it; make a speedy investigation;
give your decision without delay.
It can be truly said that life is never humdrum for those
who are expressing their abilities in the very difficult job
of handling complaints. There are letter writers who welcome
the arrival on their desks of a particularly troublesome or
even malicious complaint, because it gives them a chance to
exercise their talents in solving a perplexing problem.
When a person comes to grips with a challenging situation,
either person-to-person or by correspondence, and handles
it properly, that is fulfilment of his creative urge. He is
not patching up something, but is building something.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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