If you’re part of the service or retail industry, you probably have ways of dealing with customer-related problems whether at your physical storefront or through your outsourced Philippine call center. You’re bound to face a complaint, no matter how impeccable your service is, most probably due to factors that are beyond your control.
Problems are inevitable, but this doesn’t mean that you should just wait for them to happen before you can act. You should have preventive measures to keep complaints at bay. And prevention starts by spotting the problems that you’ll possibly encounter. Here are some ways to find issues that could become worse or remain unsettled if not reported:
1. Open platforms for customer ideas and opinions
Most of the time, customer service representatives are only alerted about an issue if it has already inconvenienced the customer who reported it. Calling support is usually a last resort. When customers feel that an issue is minor, they try to fix it on their own or air out to others. Take advantage of this by monitoring brand reception onlineāon social media, forums, and review sites. Alternatively, you could open forums yourself where you can participate in user-to-user talk about your products or conduct polls to spot brewing issues.
2. Look for needs you can address in growing trends
When you notice a growing trend or innovation, what do you do? Most business-minded individuals would think of ways to jump on the trend and find ways to use it for business leverage. But if you’re also customer-centric, you’d first think of needs you could address before thinking of things to sell. For instance, mobile booking is becoming a trend in your region’s hospitality industry. Before launching your own mobile app, you should initially research about common problems people encounter when using booking apps to provide a service that is smoother than what competitors offer.
3. Stay by the side of new customers
After-sales care is important, especially for customers who are only starting to get a feel of your products. Since it’s likely their first time to experience your brand, they would probably need assistance regarding its use, so make sure they know how to reach you in case an issue arises and check on them by placing calls. However, you should give them time to experience your products fully before asking for feedback to spot real product problems instead of simple cases of misuse.
4. Study patterns
A problem solved doesn’t mean a problem gone. Fixing issues doesn t stop at one customer because there might be others experiencing the same concern or will encounter it in the future. So, analyze the frequency, pattern, and cause of a problem, as well as its possible effect. Getting regular reports of delivery delays may mean underperformance in your logistics unit, and a possible result from this is a decline in orders from customers.
Every mistake is an opportunity to improve, especially in the customer service trade where complaints are commonplace. But if you nip the issue in the bud, you give greater chances for you business to grow and eventually, reap the products of your proactive care.
