Dealing With Disappointed Customers in Print and Online
Businesses must sometimes respond to disappointed customers. Whether your company is responding to frustrated customers through social networking channels or through more traditional channels, it will face the same challenges at maintaining goodwill. Generally, negative messages to customers follow the same pattern as other bad-news messages.
Read the scenario, and then answer the question.
You work for a credit card company and are training a new employee in the customer service department. The new employee is learning how to deal with disappointed customers and perform damage control.
What points should you cover in your training? Check all that apply.
A. Following up phone conversations with documentation
B. Promoting goodwill
C. Apologizing appropriately
D. Providing adequate explanations of the problem, the situation, and the resolution
Your company is debating whether to create its own Facebook page. A colleague argues that joining Facebook is dangerous because of the potential for customers to post negative comments.
How should you respond to your colleague?
A. You’re right. A Facebook presence could ruin our reputation. It’s best for businesses to avoid social networking.
B. Social media gives us the opportunity to learn from and more fully engage with customers. We should embrace it rather than fear it.
C. We don’t have to worry about negative comments because we can just delete them.
Handling problems with orders can be tricky. When you must deliver disappointing news about an order, use _______________ (FILL IN THE BLANK) to avoid negative feelings from the customer.
OPTIONS:
an indirect approach
a pivoting paragraph
a direct approach
How can you build goodwill when announcing a price increase or rate hike?
A. Explain how the company will benefit from the increase in revenue and the ability to streamline operations in the future.
B. Demonstrate how the rate change will provide better value, improved features, or more efficiency for the customer.
C. Emphasize how the cost savings are being passed on to the customer.
Read the scenario, and then answer the question.
A customer has submitted a claim to have his cell phone replaced at no charge. However, the customer’s warranty expired 11 months ago, and the phone no longer works because the customer accidentally dropped it in his washing machine. You must write him to deny his claim.
How can you show empathy while breaking the bad news?
A. Use the reasons-before-refusal plan.
B. Inform the customer that you had the same thing happen to you.
C. Provide the customer with a long list of why the company is profitable.
When refusing credit, what should you avoid including? Check all that apply.
A. An indirect organization pattern
B. Language that is objective and neutral
C. Disclosures that could cause a lawsuit
D. Language that causes hard feelings