How to manage customer complaints

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Time: October 31, 2003

Moderator: Stephen Chen, Senior Special Editor of "CEConline"

Guest: Douglas Garth (Lin Ke Consulting (China) Company Senior Consultant) Sun Wanying (General Manager of Meite Technology Co., Ltd.) Nie Yong (Customer Service Director of Lenovo Group Co., Ltd. Shenzhen Branch) Feng Yumin (Customer Service Manager of Global Sources China) Xiong Jun (Shenzhen Dianshi Software) Co., Ltd. Operation Director) Huang Zhibiao (Senior Manager of Customer and Business Management Department of Runxun Communication Group Co., Ltd.) Zhu Xubin (Marketing Director of Shenzhen Chidun Electronics Co., Ltd.) Huang Yangzi (Manager of Yongcheng Eyewear Accessories Material) Kong Biao (China Europe International Business School) Manager of South China) Zhang Xiaopeng (Office Director of Chongqing Yuanwang Technology Information Co., Ltd.) Liao Yuandong (Project Engineer of Guomao Electronics Co., Ltd.)

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Complaints are specific manifestations of customer dissatisfaction with products or services . Customer complaints contain important information worth listening to and are a way for companies to gain external feedback. Correct management of customer complaints and timely remediation of various mistakes can improve customer satisfaction, maintain customer loyalty, and ultimately bring benefits to the enterprise.

How can complaints flow smoothly through the company?

Customer complaints are directional. Sometimes, when some employees receive customer complaints, their first reaction is to cover up the problem. More often, customer complaints are resolved by customer service staff, and the upper management of the company simply does not know what kind of complaints have occurred, what is the tendency of complaints, and what problems are implied in them. How to ensure the smooth transmission of customer complaints in the company, and even to the decision-making level, has become a problem that company managers are very concerned about.

There should be a channel for customer complaints to be transmitted, said Nie Yong, customer service director of Lenovo Shenzhen Branch, Lenovo has a special call center, and there is a special queue to handle customer complaints. The number of the call center is introduced to customers through the company's prints, warranty certificates, storefronts and other channels. In this way, about 90% of the complaints are passed to the customer service department for processing. The remaining 10% of complaints may occur in dealers or repair stations, and Lenovo also has relevant ways to deal with these complaints. For example, for dealers, any customer complaints that cannot be handled must be reported to Lenovo for handling.

After a customer complains about entering the company, there is an upward process. Lenovo has a special quality monitoring department that classifies 80% of customer complaints to distinguish whether they are dissatisfied with the product or with the service; whether it is a problem with the dealer, or whether the policy does not meet the potential requirements of users. In the President's Office, there is a monthly "Voice of Customers" meeting, and CEO Yang Yuanqing also attends and gives timely feedback.

Zhu Xubin, Marketing Director of Shenzhen Chidun Electronics Co., Ltd. also believes that the call center is an effective channel. They also have a channel of the boss's e-mail. Every customer will know this e-mail. If there is any problem, they can contact the boss directly.

Sun Wanying, general manager of Meite Technology Co., Ltd. believes that the direct intervention of the boss to deal with customer complaints does not really require him to deal with these matters, but to send a signal: I attach great importance to this matter.

Several ways to ensure the smooth flow of the channel If customer complaints can be unimpeded in the company, it is not enough to have a rigid channel, and there must be various measures to ensure the smooth flow of the channel.

Sun Wanying believes that the orientation of the company's internal processing of information is very important, he said: "In many companies, complaints will affect your performance, income, and even the issue of leaving and staying, which has led to many people who will Complaints are kept out of the door. In our company, for such problems, first, we will not take direct punishment measures, but solve the problem first. Human resources will record key events so that all parties can clarify the problem, but no He was punished at that time. Second, the company must regularly check customer feedback. For example, if customers are randomly checked, there may be no complaints from customers, but if the customer service department of the company has such a mechanism to conduct regular investigations on customers, if there is a complaint at that time, it is not properly resolved. , this method can also make up for it."

Huang Yangzi, manager of Yongcheng Eyewear Accessories and Materials Co., Ltd., believes that the channel for customer complaints should be unblocked, and monitoring is very important. One of the methods of monitoring is to let your employees complain as customers from time to time, so that you can know whether the complaints are truly reflected.

How to analyze customer complaints?

Analyzing the Reasons That Trigger Complaints At this management forum, Douglas Gass, a senior consultant from Linkco Consulting (China), gave a short speech: How to turn customer complaints into customer value. In the analysis model he showed, the analysis of customer complaints not only includes the negative feelings of customers, but also the customer's demographics, cultural background, environment, consumption traditions, special circumstances and other aspects.

He believes that the process of dealing with customer complaints is not difficult, and analyzing the reasons that trigger customer complaints is the key point, "We should ask our customers if they are happy, why are they unhappy, and how to make them Be happy. Before complaints arise, you must know the indicators that customers care about. Customers are very satisfied with some indicators of our products or services, but they may feel that this indicator is not important, while for some important indicators, there are When customers say they are satisfied, maybe only 85% of them are satisfied, and you need to improve this difference."

Complaining with a scientific and systematic analysis, Feng Yumin, Manager of Customer Service Department of Global Sources China, believes that if complaints have already occurred, they can Analyze whether complaints are about people, products, or services. Collect the data of the customer service center first, then classify it, and also need to do some face-to-face communication with the front-line personnel, so as to have an overall grasp of the problem.

Huang Zhibiao, senior manager of the customer and business management department of Runxun Communication Group Co., Ltd., said that for customer complaints and other inquiries, they have a total of 50-70 indicators, involving all aspects of service. After the call center collects customer opinions, it will be compared and analyzed. Generally, a month focuses on one or two issues that customers care about.

Nie Yong also introduced the analysis method of Lenovo Group: "Our indicators are divided into four categories. Whether customers are dissatisfied with product quality, service policy, or work quality (such as service attitude) cannot be classified into this category. We classify the three categories into other categories. This is an indicator of one dimension. In addition, there are different indicators from the dimension of product line, and another dimension is whether it is a large customer or a general consumer. In this way, just like the Internet, complaints can always be placed in one Go to the grid."

Nie Yong said: "Because the base of sales is very large, every complaint has a control line to match its sales. If it exceeds the control line, it is abnormal. Once There is a model, the speaker rustles when the mouse is moved. The first user complained that there was no condition for discrimination, and later customers complained and jumped out of the control line. We reported this problem to the business department, and the business department is developing Based on the analysis, the speaker was improved on the production line, and the problem was solved."

The principle of 28 in the complaint analysis Sun Wanying believes that when analyzing complaints, we must first analyze who is complaining, if Customers who can only provide 20% of your profits are complaining, and the way to deal with them is different. In addition, there may be 10 items in the complaint, if you want to maximize satisfaction with the least cost, you must focus on the key issues.

Douglas raised another possibility, the customers who bring in 1% of the revenue may be big customers, but 99% of their business is done with others. Therefore, it may be irrational to treat customer complaints directly according to the 28 principle.

How to prevent complaints or identify opportunities?

Don't let complaints escalate Sun Wanying believes that the customer's feelings are very important in the process of complaining. If he thinks that he is not taken seriously, his mood will be elevated to a very high state. Therefore, it is very important to guide customers, so the training of customer service personnel is also very important. When encountering a customer complaint, first tell the customer that we are dealing with it, so that the customer can feel that they are being cared for, so as to prevent the complaint from further escalation.

One-stop service is one way to deal with complaints correctly. Kong Biao believes that in the face of complaints, one-stop service is the best, and customers are most afraid of being pushed around.

Discover opportunities for improvement from complaints Customer complaints contain market opportunities. Douglas cites the example of Starbucks. Starbucks did not sell blended coffee before. Many customers expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of such coffee. The clerk reported the situation to the boss, so Starbucks began to sell blended coffee. Douglas believes it's about finding value opportunities in customer complaints rather than saying we don't sell this.

Nie Yong also believes that this market sensitivity is important, saying: "We once heard such a complaint that a left-handed user complained that the mouse was very inconvenient to use. This part of the user produces a mouse for left-handed people."

But such improvements must also consider the input-output ratio. Nie Yong gave another example. The LCD monitors they sell now occasionally have one or two dead pixels, but the current process cannot guarantee that there will be no dead pixels at all. According to national regulations, as long as there are no more than three. But some customers just don't accept it. Now there are also manufacturers who guarantee 100%, so they have to have a re-selection process, and the cost is very high.

Therefore, Nie Yong believes that when customers complain, it is necessary to investigate whether the needs of 99% of users are not met, or only 1% of customers have this demand. If it is only 1%, it does not matter if they are abandoned.

Sun Wanying said from another point of view, when finding opportunities from complaints, long-term and short-term goals should also be considered. If you don't make money when you meet customer requirements for the first time, it is feasible to make money next time. , after all owns the client.

This article was organized by Marisa Wang. Want to know the full transcript of this management salon? Please log on to the CEConline website to view the live version of the Management Salon.