One benefit of a contemporary economy is that the customer may find a good selection of goods and services, with a fair chance of being satisfied with their decision. Every good and service would be provided flawlessly in an ideal world. However, occasionally goods and services turn out to be less than ideal, necessitating the promotion of consumer rights to create a society that values customers. The purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for future academics to study the complaint behaviour of unsatisfied consumers.
How resolving consumer complaints help businesses?
1. Increasing customer satisfaction
When unhappy with a product, many consumers will keep it to themselves and quit utilising your services.
Those who do share, however, frequently do so by expressing both their own sentiments and those of other clients. Consequently, you are likely to satisfy more than one consumer when you respond to their comments and offer a prompt answer.
According to a Harvard Business Review analysis, customers who submitted complaints are often more pleased with the service and more devoted to the business when their problems are promptly resolved.
2. Upgrade of goods or services
The gold is when customers say there are issues with your product or service, or they just dislike certain features or components. You no longer need to consider strategies to improve your service’s appeal to clients in order to guarantee that they continue to pick you over your rivals.
Customer complaints provide information on what needs to be improved and worked on. Additionally, by reading negative evaluations, you could discover fresh, clever suggestions for enhancing your product that you hadn’t previously considered.
3. Streamlining policies and practises
Most businesses have a variety of rules and procedures in place to improve business operations.
You may not always be able to tell if they are operating as planned and to your business’s advantage. Fortunately, negative feedback frequently reveals issues with internal procedures and gives you suggestions about what is not functioning or is precisely unclear to clients.
By examining this data, you will be able to determine which operations require improvement and which you should just abandon since they are cumbersome or unnecessary. Additionally, you get feedback on how well your personnel manages their duties at the same time.
4. Improvement in client communication
Additionally, customer reviews act as a conduit for communication between your business and its customers. According to the research, the majority of customers quit businesses because they think those businesses don’t care about them.
It’s crucial for many of them to know that their thoughts are taken into consideration. Additionally, customers are more likely to stick with your business and recommend it to others if they feel that there is an open channel of contact and that their perspective is valued.
5. Enhancing the reputation of a brand
Additionally, having an open line of contact where customers may voice complaints about your services or negative experiences helps to improve the perception of your business. It enhances your reputation and presents your business as reliable and kind.
The more you go above and beyond to fix the stated problems, the happier your customers will be. Additionally, satisfied consumers are more likely to recommend your business to their friends, family, and coworkers, which only serves to spread the word and enhance your reputation.
Steps to Resolve Consumer Complaint
Step 1: Gathering information and making a complaint record
Who is grumbling? What is the purpose? what kind of goods or services? What sequence is in question, and what day?
To get the most information that will enable you to debrief the quality department, you must respond to all of these questions. This stage is crucial since it’s possible that the claim is unjustified.
Step 2: Confirmation of complaint receipt
Once the issue has been located, don’t forget to give the affected customer an acknowledgement of receipt as soon as you can; typically, the suggested time frame is 24 hours. This acknowledgement confirms that the complaint has been dealt with in a formal manner and details the actions the company took to address it.
Step 3:Conduct an internal investigation
There may be more goods at play if the buyer in question discovered a bolt in a salad. Therefore, it will be necessary to conduct an internal inquiry to determine the likely cause of the issue. This will include, among other things, the following in this particular instance:
- check the records;
- check shipping records;
- interview maintenance team on the maintenance of the production line in question;
- check the products of the same production in the sample library.
These checks are essential to rule out the risk of finding other pieces of metal in salads of the same production.
Step 4: Process the consumer complaint
You must prepare a letter of complaint processing after receiving the acknowledgement of receipt. In this letter, you must explain to the client the potential causes of the non-conformity and the steps you will take internally to prevent it from happening again.
In this scenario, it is necessary to additionally provide compensation to the client; it is preferable to make use of a compensation grid that establishes the amount of compensation in accordance with the significance of the recognised fault.
Step 5: Setting up internal activities
This non-conformity phase is the root cause analysis stage. Future occurrences of the issue must be prevented at all costs! This will be an example in this particular situation:
- to carry out maintenance (grading, calibration…) ;
- to carry out operators training (on line and on dispatch);
- to perform maintenance on all relevant machines.
REFERENCES
Mahapatra, Satyanarayan. (2014). An empirical analysis of cause of consumer dissatisfaction and the reasons why consumers enduring dissatisfaction. Serbian Journal of Management. 9. 71-89. 10.5937/sjm9-5181.
S. Donoghue (2006)Dissatisfied consumers’ complaint behaviour concerning product failure – a conceptual framework
S. N. Mahapatra(2014)AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CAUSE OF CONSUMER DISSATISFACTION AND THE REASONS WHY CONSUMERS ENDURING DISSATISFACTION
D. Owens (2019) Effect of Simplifying the complaint Process: A Field Experiment
G. Naylor (2014), A COMPLAINING CUSTOMER: A SERVICE PROVIDER’S BEST FRIEND?
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