Complaints Management in Call Center

From the complaint process, the customer expects the least number of contacts, a quick solution of the case – of course in his favor – and a polite apology. In practice, it happens that the process looks completely different. It turns out that his complaint cannot be resolved at the first contact, because the consultant is not entitled to do so, the case is delayed due to the need to involve an expert, and the customer’s expectations related to, for example, repair or withdrawal from the contract will not be met by the company.

As a result, a dissatisfied customer will not only not return to shopping in a given store, but will also tell his family and friends about the difficulties or issue negative opinions on the Internet. Therefore, planning complaint procedures and striving to improve them is an extremely important element of customer relationship management – and should be done from their perspective.

The first step to optimizing the complaint process by the contact center is to analyze the current problems and set new goals. It may be an increase in the level of cases resolved within 24 hours, minimizing the number of contacts during the complaint, maintaining as many customers as possible supported by positive results of the loyalty survey (NPS).

Call Center Complaint Strategy

Purpose awareness helps in the design and implementation of procedures. You should plan each stage of the complaint from the customer’s perspective and propose internal processes that will be short and efficient. Therefore, it is worth including in the strategy acceptable reaction times, the manner of considering complaints and the level of decision-making of each person in the process.

Then it is necessary to implement such a system that will cover the entire complaint team in the call center. Thanks to this, the consultant will be able to provide the client with information at what stage his case is at any time. It is best if the system has as many functionalities as possible to automate the processes that will optimize the time of the complaint process.

The strategy is a good time to prepare materials for consultants – a selection of the most common problems during the complaint along with their solutions, sample scenarios of conversation with clients, advice on intonation and used vocabulary that will help ease the matter. It is also necessary to conduct frequent and regular trainings concerning both products and complaint processes and developing soft skills.

Perfect Complaint in the Contact Center

For the customer, the brand experience should be consistent. Regardless of the purchase and communication channel, it expects the same functionalities and knowledge of advisors and consultants about its purchase history. Therefore, it should have the same possibility to file and process complaints in each of the communication channels supported by the company. This means traditional handling of complaints in the store or the company’s headquarters, but also via telephone, e-mail, SMS or even messages on Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

Shortening the time of considering the complaint, minimizing the number of contacts and informing about the tricks in the process on a current basis can significantly increase customer satisfaction. To do this, you need to:

• create specialized complaint channels, e.g. a telephone line that can be selected via IVR or a special e-mail address,
• give consultants as much decision-making as possible – so that in simple cases they do not have to submit complaints to appraisers for consideration and they can decide for themselves about the nature of the compensation,
• always provide the client with service by the same consultant (an expensive option, but very much appreciated by clients, so let’s keep it in mind and implement it according to our cost and operational possibilities),
• provide multi-language support in a situation where we sell to other countries,
• create a system of automatic sending of notifications about the progress in the complaint process, e.g. “goods received”, “in the opinion of the expert”, “complaint considered”,
• automate the processes of submitting and queuing the consideration of complaints,
• organize processes in order to exclude unnecessary stages and persons from them.

For some brands, customer segmentation is also important, thanks to which complaints from VIP customers are considered out of the queue.

How to reduce the Number of Complaints?

Collecting information on the reasons for complaints and their constant analysis helps to define problems related to the product, service or customer service process. When managing complaints, a good contact center not only efficiently handles complaints, but also checks their causes and proposes solutions that will reduce the number of complaints in the future.

A good source of knowledge about possible reasons for complaints is also Internet monitoring, especially forums, social media and portals enabling the sharing of opinions about products. Analyzing customer statements will allow you to find hot spots and prepare for possible complaints.

In addition, the call center can also examine the level of customer satisfaction with the service during the complaint and, thanks to this, improve the process – so as to achieve its goal: reduce the negative effects of original dissatisfaction with the product and make the customer return to shopping in a given store with a smile. brand.