Despite all the precautions and measures put in place by a company, a service error is inevitable. It can be the result of a technical error, a human error, or even an element completely out of the control of the company, such as an error on the part of the consumer or abnormal delivery times. One thing is certain is that service error can happen to any company.
That said, it is critical for today's organizations to adequately manage customer dissatisfaction. When you know that retaining a client is five to ten times cheaper than acquiring a new one, you understand why managing customer dissatisfaction is an important practice to implement. Outgo tells you today how to manage your customer's dissatisfaction in order to create loyalty opportunities in your customer.
Consumer Reaction to Service Failure
When a product or service does not meet a customer's expectations, the customer can respond in three ways:
- Opt for silence and tell you nothing
- Deciding to break your relationship with your business
- Send you a verbal reply.
It is interesting to know that almost 50% of dissatisfied customers will not mention it to your company and therefore opt for silence. This means that in 50% of dissatisfaction cases, you are not aware that there has been a service failure.
This can quickly become dangerous to the longevity of your business, since in 71% of silent dissatisfaction cases, consumers will limit their future purchases from your organization. The abundance and strength of competitors in today's market has become an important issue in the customer buying process. A number of alternative products and services are available to consumers and consumers do not hesitate to shop for them, especially in the event of unanswered dissatisfaction.
In addition, it should be remembered that 72% of dissatisfied clients who remain silent will tend to use a negative word of mouth, compared with 22% of dissatisfied clients who have received a service repair that meets their expectations. In other words, responding to dissatisfaction decreases the odds of negative word-of-mouth by half.
Inviting consumers to share their experiences is therefore a practice that can be very cost-effective if the dissatisfaction management process in place is adequate.
Facilitating complaint filing to reduce dissatisfaction
It's good to say that you want to know your customer's feedback, but if the process for filing a complaint is complex, you may not get much of the feedback from dissatisfied customers, or even worse, discovering negative feedback directly on social media. Be sure to clearly indicate the method to be followed and plan a way to respond quickly to messages received, whether through instant messaging, email, phone, or in person.
In addition, receiving and responding to the claim is not sufficient. Does your response still need to be relevant and meet the consumer's expectations? When a customer takes the time to complain, they usually have high expectations. He expects to be compensated and treated well throughout the claim process.
The biggest difficulty is that these expectations can vary on a case-by-case basis. You can then process these claims in a personalized way if you are a very small business, or you can build up what is called a compensation grid.
This grid will allow you to rank your customers according to their expectations and according to the severity of the situation. You could also assess the value of the customer to your business, because of course there are customers who will be eternally dissatisfied and are only looking for free. However, this is more complex to evaluate, especially if you have limited resources.
Claim Management: The Turning Point of Service Failure
The relationship you build with your customers can quickly become an important competitive advantage because when you properly manage dissatisfaction, you greatly increase your chances of building customer loyalty.
Indeed, more than 6 times out of 10, relational is mentioned as a reason for breaking up between the customer and the company, far from product failures and financial aspects. In other words, managing dissatisfaction adequately could save up to 60% of your broken clientele.
However, be careful to respond to dissatisfaction, since a customer who has made a claim and who has not been satisfied with the handling of their claim is no better than a dissatisfied customer who has remained silent. Indeed, the rates of limitation on purchases and negative word-of-mouth are very similar between them.
In addition, a dissatisfied claimant will be more likely to break their relationship with your company and may even engage in revenge behaviours such as calling for boycott.
The benefits of managing dissatisfaction
Proper claims management helps reduce the negative behaviours of claimants and thereby increase positive behaviours. Good claims management can lead to increased trust, loyalty, positive word of mouth, purchases and reduced price sensitivity.
In addition, managing claims can be an excellent practice for the following purposes:
- Identify customers who may break their relationship with your business and then try to build loyalty.
- Maintain a quality brand image by avoiding negative SEO as much as possible.
- Limit the number of future dissatisfaction by identifying causes and acting preemptively; 75% of claims are due to 20% of claims sources.
Managing dissatisfaction is a must for a company. The company must listen to its consumers in order to ensure the quality of its services and correct the situation when service failures occur. Several methods exist to deal with complaints received expeditiously. The best advice we can give you is to hire qualified staff who will be able to respond to your requests with the utmost respect.
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