Is everyone in your organisation’s customer-facing roles equipped with the required skills and knowledge to effectively manage complaints? The points listed below will help you to assess how prepared they are and any gaps that may exist to inform you of any training that you might need to put in place.

1. The Customer Journey and product and service knowledge 

Do your team members in customer-facing roles have a good understanding of the entire customer journey? Are they aware of the most important touch points with customers? Do your team members have excellent knowledge of your products and services, allowing them to handle feedback and complaints? By thoroughly understanding the customer journey, your products and services and any potential areas where things can go wrong, customer service team members can anticipate any issues before they escalate. This understanding can help to reduce complaints and address any small concerns customers may have before they escalate.  

2. Active Listening  

When we discuss with MGI customers how well they listen, generally people feel they listen well, however they could be more conscious about the way in which they listen. This is endorsed when simple activities are undertaken on training programmes to show how well we listen. In our experience, participants always realise through these activities that there is room for improvement. Having high awareness of listening and the skills to be attentive, appreciative of the information being shared and appropriately responsive can help to manage complaints more effectively and collaboratively for more successful outcomes.  

3. Expressing appropriate empathy 

Being able to express appropriate empathy is high on the customer service agenda. When dealing with feedback and complaints, appreciating the impact that the situation has had on the customer, listening carefully to what is being shared with you and then reassuring the customer of what you will do to help is a simple three-step process to demonstrate empathy with action to help resolve any issues.  

4. Composure for excellent service 

In complaint and feedback situations, your customer service team members can of course experience customers’ strong emotions. It is important for them to be able to empathise as we said above, and it is important that they are not drawn into the emotions or triggered into an unproductive emotional state. Giving your team members coping approaches to help is key. Strategies such as taking a pause or time out, asking for help or offering to call customers back knowing that they will be supported by managers will ensure they remain in the best place to give excellent service.  

5. Solution orientation 

Maintaining a focus on what is possible and what solutions can be offered to customers in complaint and feedback situations requires excellent problem-solving skills. The right mindset of ownership and responsibility and optimism that a solution or compromise can be found sets the best foundation for managing complaints to a successful and positive conclusion. It is important for team members to know when to hand over when they are outside of their remit or level of autonomy, and to know how to do so and to whom. Communicating this clearly to customers is also a valuable skill. 

6. Positive, solution-focused communication 

Communicating what is possible before stating what is not possible is a fundamental skill which keeps customers wanting to work with us to resolve complaints and avoid escalations. Training in positive, solution-focused communications is needed to ensure that the skills are in place to explain what is and is not possible and to tell the customer if the service provider needs to check before giving an answer. Having the approach that we always say what we can do first, even if this means handing over to another person or taking the time to check what is possible, builds trust with customers as they will believe we truly value their feedback, care about the service they are receiving and are committed to finding a solution. 

7. Follow up – the ultimate in customer care 

Once a complaint or feedback has been resolved and action plans are agreed, is there an organisational process in place to double check all actions have been completed? This extra care and attention to detail is greatly appreciated by customers and often a pleasant surprise, cementing the organisation’s reputation of welcoming and acting on feedback and seeing this as invaluable in providing the best service.  

8. Learning and continuous improvement 

Finally, within your feedback management, is there a process for reviewing, categorising and analysing the feedback in order to learn for the future and implement corrective actions? While this may seem to be a relatively obvious statement, it is important to review and check whether improvement mechanisms and processes really are in place and being followed systematically.  

A quick review of a selection of complaints against these eight points can reveal some interesting information to endorse your focus and recognise the organisation’s commitment to service. It can also act as a checklist for complaint and feedback processes, technical and service skills, to determine whether technical, process, service or complaint handling training is needed.  

Get in touch to find out how MGI’s bespoke eLearning, face to face or blended complaint handling programmes based on our Mindset, Language & Actions Toolkit can rapidly equip your teams with everything they need to excel in their service. 

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