In a perfect world, every customer your business works with will be pleased with how the transaction went and will want to return to you for future business.

In reality, this isn’t always the case. It is human nature that people make mistakes and there will always be circumstances outside of your control that can result in a customer not feeling satisfied with your products and services. Consider the following tips for handling negative customer feedback:

Be responsive

When people feel they have received poor or inadequate service, they can be quick to complain. One thing that can be extremely damaging and can make that person feel even more negatively towards your business is to ignore them. Being unresponsive can come across as arrogant and seriously tarnish the reputation of your business. Once a customer has complained, the best thing you can do is to work to rectify and resolve their issue. Doing nothing and failing to respond casts a negative light on the business, particularly in the social media environment where there is a large audience.

Apologise and offer a solution

One of the worst actions you can take is to respond aggressively and take no responsibility for the way in which you have made the customer feel. The best approach is to acknowledge they are unhappy, apologise and assure them that you will contact them, through calling or emailing, or encourage them to come back into the business so that you can resolve the issue for them in person.

Implement changes

Once you have spoken to the unhappy customer and worked out how you can resolve the issue, it is important that you implement the appropriate changes to resolve the issue.

Saying you are going to take action and then not doing anything will only make the issue bigger. One common mistake that occurs is when one employee says they will follow up and take appropriate action to resolve the issue, but then fails to do so, and then when the customers calls back, they deal with a different employee who has no knowledge of the situation.

Learn from it

To prevent the same issue occurring again in the future, analyse how the negative feedback was dealt with and if it was dealt with efficiently. Evaluate what could be done better or what could be approved upon. Maybe you dealt with and resolved the issue in the end however the procedure in place for following up with and responding to negative feedback could be improved. Every negative aspect of business should be analysed and improved upon, this is how your business model will continue to develop and strengthen.