No matter your industry, customer complaints are inevitable. Even if you’ve streamlined your website experience, your customers are bound to hit a roadblock that’ll take them to the customer service team.
With a large number of customers opting out of shopping from brick and mortar stores and transitioning to digital stores, they face more skepticism during their online buying journey.
Be it before making a purchase or after, customers experience purchase anxiety. But having to still make the purchase online, they’re definitely going to have questions and concerns. Right from before placing an order to after.
Your customers are your biggest determinant of growth and success. So when a customer complains, hearing them out and taking action can be the best way to improve your brand’s overall experience and give your customers the shopping experience they deserve. But before that, offering them the support they need to make the right purchase, is how you guarantee winning them over.
Now handling customer queries can be overwhelming and sometimes, frustrating. So in this post, we’ll discuss some of the common ones and tell you how to resolve them.
One of the most common issues faced by customers is website or order issues. These originate mainly due to tech issues with the website and can easily hamper a customer’s shopping experience on your website. If your response to website/order issues is slow or unsatisfactory to the customer, they are likely to bounce off from your site and not return in the future.
The following website glitches can create a frustrating experience for a customer:
- Product page contains incorrect or incomplete information.
- Product page or website isn’t loading.
- Errors with checkout page form fields.
- Order confirmation page doesn't load.
- Order is not getting processed.
- Unable to edit Cart
With every eCommerce site vying for a customer’s attention, giving them a bad website experience can result in huge bounce offs and dwindling sales.
Product concerns is another major complaint made by customers. Typically a customer would issue a complaint about a product if it did not meet their expectations.
While some product complaints may be fake, the majority are legitimate. Addressing such complaints with product replacements or quick refunds can go a long way in building customer loyalty towards your brand.
Issues with refunds and reimbursements is another category of customer complaints. This can result from inability to return an item, or not getting a full refund along with the shipping cost or exceeding the return window.
Delays in deliveries can be a very off-putting experience for a customer, often leading to customer complaints. If they receive an item later than they expected or even if the product got damaged during delivery, it will significantly reduce their trust with your website.
According to the report by WalkerInfo, customer experience will be the key brand differentiator in 2021 and will act as a decisive factor for consumers when they’re building a relationship with your brand.
A negative customer experience can affect your brand reputation, lead you to lose your current customers and drive away prospective customers to your competitors.
While satisfied customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, one bad customer experience can shift them to your competitor’s products.
Here’s how bad customer experienced hamper your business’s growth:
So now that we are aware of the common customer complaints that can affect a brand’s image and ultimately its business, let’s see the different ways we can tackle these complaints:
Live chat is now a “must have” communication tool for any business.Live chat is the best method to resolve a customer’s complaints by connecting with them on a personal level. Talking to a real person gives them an assurance that their complaints will be resolved. This improves the relationship between the company and the customer.
A staggering 46% of customers prefer live chat as their digital contact method with the brand, compared to just 16% for social media and 29% for email. Today, more than 41% customers expect your website to support live chat, with the number as high as 50% for mobile users. Moreover, live chat brings the highest rate of customer satisfaction (73%) as opposed to other forms of support.
By harnessing the power of live chat, you could be:
If you’re looking for a quick and easy live chat solution, check out the TextChat customer service chat. This is an app that essentially notifies you on SMS that a customer has triggered a query through a live chat, letting you join the conversation with just a link click. So you can join anytime and from anywhere, thus drastically reducing your turnaround time.
Often, customer complaints come in the form of social media posts either from a customer’s account or on your own social media account, making the complaint visible on an even bigger platform. In such cases, it becomes even more important to swiftly resolve the complaint and make it known on the social post.
Consider commenting on the complaint post from your brand’s main profile or a support profile. A polite response like “We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and apologize for the delay in delivery. Please email us and we will ensure a timely refund for your cancellation.”
Be prompt to reply to every negative comment received on your branded social media posts. Respond to their concern and try to take the conversation further on chat or email. Use Textchat to easily integrate with Facebook messenger and resolve customer complaints on social media more easily and effectively.
Emails are still one of the most effective ways to reach out to a customer. You can use email to create the first touchpoint after a customer has lodged a complaint. Create an email response to prompt the customer to connect with you over a chat or ask them of you can give them a call, to resolve the issue quickly and effectively
A phone call is another great way to handle frustrated customers as it gives you a chance to directly speak to them, placate their anger with a calm voice and assuring words and resolve the issue quickly. However, the cost of offering phone support is a lot, especially if you’re catering to multiple markets and languages.
Cultivating the right response to customer complaints can make or break their relationship with your brand and rekindle their trust in you.
To build appropriate responses, build a repository of customer service scripts across different categories of support requests, like billing issues, shipping delays, returns or replacements, discount voucher, website irregularities and more. Use positive scripting and empathize with your customer to emphasize your brand's voice when dealing with complaints.
We’ve put together a list of customer service scripts to use as a starting point and customize according to your brand messaging, policies and processes.
Your customers can contact you regarding the following common shipping issues. Be ready with a response script for each of them:
Tracking shipment
Hey! Your order is on its way to you. To track your order, click on the “Track my Order” link in the Order Confirmation email ( the one with the subject line “Your order is confirmed”). You can also track your order here: {order_tracking_url}.
Delay in shipment
We’re sorry this order didn’t arrive on time. We’re doing our best to get your much needed box to you as soon as possible. To further show how much we appreciate you shopping with us, please accept this free gift with your next order. Just click the link below to add a free {product_name} to your account. Click here to claim your free gift: {Insert_link}
Lost shipment
We’re sorry that your order got lost during shipment. We would be glad to offer you a replacement with a 2-day shipping guarantee (and no additional cost) or a full refund of your order.
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. Our team wants to help fix this issue as soon as possible. We’d request you to email us at support@email.com or start a chat on our website {website_link}
We’re sorry that you received a service that prompted you to contact us with a complaint and we regret any inconvenience or frustration your experience has caused you. To resolve this issue on high priority, we’ve notified the proper department about your complaint. We hope you’ll keep giving us opportunities to serve you.
When return request is far outside the policy window
We’re sorry to let you know that your return is far past the return window allotted to process the return of this product. As per our policy, returns can be processed upto 30 days. To make up for this, we’re offering you a $10 discount coupon for your next purchase.
When return request is slightly outside the policy window
Since you’re only a couple of days late than the return window, I will personally place a return request for you. You shall be receiving the return request details on your registered email ID with details of the pickup within 24-48 hours.
We regret to inform you that this item is non-returnable as per our return policy. However, I am happy to offer you a 20% discount code redeemable on your next order. Happy shopping!
We deeply regret that you had a frustrated experience with your service. I can get you in touch with a manager who will be able to fasttrack the response to your complaint. Would you prefer that he/she contact you via email or phone?
Offering a discount coupon can be a good way to placate a frustrated customer. But should you offer gifts or discount coupons for every kind of customer complaint?
You should only do so when it’s the company's fault for the customer’s bad experience. You can offer a coupon code for a certain amount discounted on their next order or you can offer them to choose a certain product and offer free shipping on it.
Some reasons where you can offer a discount coupon:
For any other reason which is not a fault of the company, try to find the best way to deal with the issue at hand.
A bad customer service is detrimental for any business.
To deliver better customer experiences, train your customer service team to draw upon a customer centric approach when dealing with consumer complaints.
Becoming a consumer first brand will not only help you avoid customer issues but also enable you to overcome the negative impact and build lifelong customer relationships.
Ready to take the first step to addressing shopper complaints, improving your customer service and driving more sales? Sign up on TextChat today.
