MODULE I Communication & Customer advisory Page 16

10. Procedures to follow in case of customer complaints

Of course, also mistakes are being made in a handicraft company from time to time like in any other business. These mistakes annoy customers and usually lead to customer complaints.

In case of a complaint it is important to take the customer serious because in no way one wants to lose a regular customer. The goal has to be to re-establish the trust in the company and in the own person. In general, one has to accept the complaints, has to recognise the faults and then has to eliminate them as quickly as possible. Very often employees do not like to handle complaints since this is usually an unpleasant task and in most cases it means additional work that also has to be quickly done. If one receives a customer complaint one should be able to behave very relaxed and quite since in most cases one has to first calm down upset customers.

What does it make so difficult to meet a customer who has complained about a service ?

Each customer who is complaining about something first believes that he is right. In the first place, he is annoyed about e.g. a not functioning fitting, radiator or air-conditioning device because these products are not working properly and thus are useless for him. The trust of the customer into the company or the craftsman is reaching a low. Besides that, complaints always mean a significant additional time expenditure for the customer for e.g. telephone calls, written correspondence and partly the personal presence once repairs are carried out. So, as a service technician who handles a complaint one has to frequently confront upset and very emotionally acting customers.

With the reception of complaints it is advisable that one first listens and then puts the complaints down in writing. Hereby, it is important to show friendly objectivity and understanding for the problem because the customer's trust into the goods and products, into the salesmen, into the technicians and into the whole company and its services has to be restored.

One should encounter the customer quietly and reassuring. Sometimes it helps very much if one recognises and accepts a mistake. A "we do not make mistakes" attitude should be avoided in any case. Furthermore, it would be very awkward to encounter the customer in a complaint situation using the following remarks and comments:

• "How can you possibly play around with the control valves, no wonder that everything is now wrongly adjusted....."
• "How can you not have discovered that the switch is off..... ?"
• "If one handles a device the way you did it is clear that it stops working........"

Also not much better are the following comments:

• "Well, that also happened to my children once......"
• "You are not the first one who does not understand this.........."
• "If you should forget how this works we will come by again........"

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