The true test of any good business relationship is not when things are going well...

...it is how a business responds when things go wrong.

When everything is going right, it’s very easy for a business to be good, or at least appear to be good at managing its relationships. However when things go wrong, that is when you really put an organisation to the test. The more that goes wrong, the bigger the test.

Whether it’s a major complaint, escalation or formal dispute, the pressure of needing to sort out problems puts the spotlight on how a company reacts, responds and handles their customers in that situation. 

Every business needs to have a clear strategy in place for handling and addressing problem situations. They need a plan and a process for how they wish to handle difficult customers in high stress situations....and high stress customers in difficult situations.

An important component of the strategy is having appropriately skilled people to turn to, who are aligned with how their organisation wants to manage these situations. Most companies in Australia fail to value the specialist skills needed to handle complaints or escalated situations.

More commonly they hand it over to the Account or Sales Executive or escalate to the Sales Manager, whoever has the strongest relationship, however there are two mistakes with this approach. If things get heated and the sales person is thrown in to solve it, how are they meant to turn up the next week and sell? How çan anyone think that a sales person can properly go about resolving major problems and not expect some kind of fallout that impacts their ability to sell to the same people. For the customer their sales executive will now be seen as part of the problem!

Why would you spoil the strongest relationship your company has with your customer by throwing your sales executives into the fire when it will most likely ruin the relationship.

Keep your sales people out of it! Always be sure that your sales executive explains to the customer about why they are leaving it to the professionals and not getting involved. I am yet to find a customer who doesn’t agree that they want to protect the relationship they have with sales. You should make sure your customer knows their sales executive is still there to look after them and when the situation has been resolved, they will be able to resume their role from where they left it. 

A strong complaint or dispute handling process will make the customer feel valued. It shows your customers that within your organisation in these situations, you are committed to working with them, carrying out proper due diligence to investigate what went wrong and how it will be fixed. You will also show that you have a process, that commits you to methodically work through the facts to determine what is needed to correct the situation. 

There are other important benefits to having a formal escalation process. Internally such a process will highlight to senior management what might be wrong inside your own organisation, especially where problems like this happen on a regular basis. If these issues are repetitive, then the investigation element of a robust complaint handling process will pick up any flaws or gaps in your operations.

Complaints or disputes provide every business with an opportunity to check its operations, get things in order to improve processes and make sure that you stop whatever is happening so that your staff don’t continue to repeat the same offence. Strong organisations test and reassess their internal processes on a regular basis, by surveying their customers and seeking their genuine feedback.

Most customers value an organisation that is open to finding its flaws in the quest to deliver a much better customer experience. Customer experience is all about what its like for your customers to do business with you, not just when things are going well but even more so when things to go wrong.