What can customer service do to appease the problem client?
Customers are bound to become dissatisfied. It’s a fact of doing business. No matter what business you’re in, how exceptional your products and services are, or how many awards and positive feedback you’ve received from clients, things happen. Problems persist and when they do, you want your customer-facing staff, such as service representatives, empowered enough to handle unhappy customers on the spot.
When service reps and call centers are able to take quick action to mollify a disgruntled or dissatisfied customer, whether in-store or online, you’re able to increase the odds that the customer will remain a customer. Successfully handling these sensitive interactions can also help spur positive word-of-mouth; satisfied customers are wont to share their experience with those they know—in person or online.
Word-of-mouth Spreads Fast; Service Reps Need to Act Faster
Today’s digital communication channels mean that word can travel at internet speed when a customer is dissatisfied. With a few clicks of a keyboard or mobile device, a disgruntled customer can literally share their negative experience with millions of people.
If your customer service representative, call center or other customer-facing staff is able to act quickly to appease the dissatisfied customer, the risk of spreading rampant negative word-of-mouth will be lessened.
Here are some important steps to have in place to ensure this can happen.
- Choose digital coupons as a means to offer appeasement to customers when something has gone wrong. Digital coupons (or gift cards) can offer fast resolution and serve to keep your brand and its products and services top of mind—in a positive way.
- Provide the ability for immediate delivery of the coupon, the ability to track distribution and redemption, and the ability to control how, when and how often a coupon may be used.
- Meet customer expectations for how they choose to receive these digital coupons, whether that’s delivery via email, chat, text message or social media.
- Monitor and track results—both in terms of redemption and customer satisfaction—and make ongoing process improvements to keep loyal customers on board.
- Train customer service reps on the process and related requirements for when and how digital coupons should be used.
Providing your service reps with the ability to access and distribute coupons quickly when dealing with customer service issues can help boost the odds that customers will share their positive experience with others.
Reap Benefits When Service Reps are Empowered to Issue Digital Coupons
Some organizations hesitate to make widespread use of coupons, especially digital coupons as a customer appeasement solution; they’re worried about the loss of control from rampant spreading and the liability which that entails; they’re worried about their misuse or overuse and don’t know how to effectively track and monitor usage over time. Conversely, single-use digital coupons significantly minimize these risks and offer other benefits as well.
- With the right digital coupon strategy, you can track coupon distribution and redemption by customer, by location, by product/service, and by other attributes that are important to the business.
- To reduce risk of abuse, ensure you leverage single-use digital coupons which expire upon the first redemption, thereby avoiding their being used over again or worse, going viral with no oversight.
- The ability to track when, where and how digital coupons have been used can help you discern important insights about customer actions after they’ve experienced a service problem.
- Get real-time data tracking to help you manage and minimize the risk of losing customers.
Despite the widespread use of digital devices these days, traditional paper coupons are still used by many organizations. It’s hard to understand why. Instantly issued single-use digital coupons provide not only the ability for employees to take immediate action, but also the ability to control, monitor, track and act on the information you can glean from distribution to redemption.
Digital Coupons Fuel High-Touch
Cost-effective customer appeasement requires a mix of high-touch and high-tech. Customer service reps provide the high-touch aided through access to single-use digital coupons they can issue quickly to appease customers in the moment. To protect your bottom line, technology can provide a measure of control by ensuring coupons are used only by the person intended and used only once.
Traditional coupons are not designed with security controls or safeguards in mind, which single-use digital coupons can provide. The ability to ensure that single-use digital coupons are used just once, either at the point of service or online, and are then immediately deactivated, means you’re not subject to a higher rate of redemption than you had anticipated.
Appease your customers quickly and effectively and they’re likely to return for business. Satisfy customers at the moment and you increase the likelihood they will spread positive word-of-mouth.
About the Author
Dan Slavin is CEO and co-founder of CodeBroker, a provider of mobile marketing solutions. He was CEO of Framework Technologies, VP of Open Market, and CEO of International Testing Services. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Yale and an MBA from Harvard.
