Let’s be honest with ourselves, who doesn’t love good feedback? We love it when our work gets great feedback and we don’t hesitate to let the whole world know about it but when we get negative feedback, we are nowhere to be found.
You won’t always get good feedback on your goods or services. Sometimes, the reason why is completely out of your hands.
Taiwo has a clothing line. One thing she is proud of is the quality of her outfits, she puts so much into making sure she sources for the finest outfits and she has never gotten a complaint from anyone. This was until one Faithful Tuesday.
She had gotten an order from a customer for her birthday, the outfit the customer had ordered was not available at the store but Taiwo had assured her she was going to get it for her before the day of her birthday.
Unfortunately, the outfit didn’t arrive until the day of the customer’s birthday despite all of Taiwo’s efforts.
Taiwo, of course, sent it over to the waiting, angry customer who felt lied to and had been anxiously waiting for her birthday outfit. This customer did not hesitate to give Taiwo an earful and went as far as calling Taiwo all sorts of names when the outfit she got tore while she was wearing it.
Taiwo was heartbroken to have gotten such feedback since this has never happened to her in her one year of owning a clothing line. She was devastated, to say the least.
Here’s what Taiwo should do in such a case and what you can also do when faced with such feedback.
Listen Carefully
Now is not the time to argue back and forth with them or to interrupt them. When a customer is venting out their complaint, it is time to listen to what is being said. This means distinguishing ignoring the quality of what they are saying and focusing on the fact. They might scream at you and even go out to call you names but you have to ignore that and hear the actual problem.
Don’t take it personal and put yourself in their shoes
The customer is riled up because of disappointment. They are not attacking you as a person but they are attacking an event.
When you put yourself in their shoes, you will have more empathy for them. This helps you understand them more especially when you are about to apologize.
Ask questions
If you have an app and a user is complaining or leaves a negative review on the internet about the app. The best thing to do is to ask questions because their complaint might be too vague and to get to the heart of the problem, you need to have more information. Ask the right questions that will help you solve the problem. This will also show you care.
Apologize and solve the issue
It will be arrogant for you to do everything above and then leave it at that. You need to apologize because a customer was let down by what you offered them.
Apologize and learn from the criticism, feedback is important.
If the customer has vented out their frustration, the next thing you can do is solve the issue for them, figure out how to handle things better next time and if you can, send them a gift which is something Taiwo can do since she ruined someone’s birthday.
Feedback and Negative criticisms are normal but one thing you should learn is not to beat yourself up over it but rather, see it as a learning experience to make your work better for other customers.