There are numerous ways in which we may inadvertently irritate our customers and clients. One of the most common complaints is that our policies and procedures are overly complicated or restrictive. We can retain our customers’ loyalty and avoid driving them away by being on the lookout for situations that put them on the defensive and handling those situations gracefully.
Are your company’s policies and procedures driving away customers?
Assume that a customer who has been with your company for a long time with no complaints finally contacts customer service due to what appears to be a billing error. She expects the error to be corrected quickly and continues on her way.
Instead, much to the customer’s surprise, your customer service representative recites a convoluted procedure she’ll have to go through to resolve the issue. “I’m sorry, but that’s our policy, and we have to follow it,” the representative explains.
That procedure could be motivated by an obscure control issue in your company, or it could be motivated by a legitimate business requirement. However, the customer does not understand the reasoning behind it. In this fictitious scenario, she tries to make suggestions but is rebuffed by an equally frustrated employee who appears uninterested in her ideas.
The customer considers, “Why aren’t they interested in my suggestions? Don’t they think my opinions are valuable? My complaint is valid, my suggestions are sound, and if they refuse to listen, I will take my business elsewhere!”
Finally, at a loss for words, the customer requests to speak with a supervisor. The representative opposes and even argues against the request. When the customer threatens to terminate her relationship with the company immediately, the representative reluctantly summons her manager. What has resulted in this dissatisfying situation?
Let’s face it: flaws in our policies and procedures can appear at any time. In those cases, what our policies permit employees to do can mean the difference between keeping or losing a customer.
These are some examples:
1) Understand your customer’s concerns and apologize for any inconveniences.
2) Explaining the policy’s existence, particularly if it represents a form of customer protection.
3) Providing immediate solutions to help alleviate the situation.
4) Actively recording issues for future system improvements, and
5) Make complaint escalation as quick and painless as possible, ideally to someone with the authority to override the policy if necessary.
When your policies and procedures cause confusion or fail to communicate a clear set of benefits to customers, they can be extremely sensitive to the “disconnects” they perceive. These are areas where the organization may not be “walking its talk,” and customers and prospects can sense it, leaving them confused about your policies and why you have them.
You can eliminate these disconnects by reviewing and fine-tuning the policies and procedures that affect the quality of your customers’ experiences on a regular basis. Standardizing procedural hand-offs within your organization will also boost your customers’ confidence and desire to work with you, because they will receive the same fair, logical, and helpful treatment regardless of whom they contact.
Finally, there are numerous ways in which we may be inadvertently frustrating our customers and clients. Our policies and procedures, in particular, may be overly complicated or restrictive. We can retain our customers’ loyalty and avoid driving them away by being on the lookout for situations that put them on the defensive and handling those situations gracefully.
