subject: Situations When The Manager Should Manage The Customer's Complaint [print this page] Situations When The Manager Should Manage The Customer's Complaint
It is known that well trained staff are more confident and competent when handling customer complaints. That is why Sales Managers spend much time and effort on sales training and related customer care skills training for their teams. Despite this, there will still be occassions when management intervention is not only desirable but also necessary. This article describes the types of scenario that require such intervention and that sales managers should look out for.There will, for all companies, be a time when a given complaint is above a certain monetary value that exceeds the authority given to the sales staff. When this limit is reached the manager will need to step in and resolve the issue. You should define the value that triggers your sales people to escalate a complaint to you. You can base this on the value of the order, which is easy to determine. The damage amount, on the other hand, is not so easy to determine. If you only get involved when the complaint is likely to result in large amounts of damage then you will give the impression that smaller cases are not taken seriously by you. It is therefore debatable whether you should take the extent of damage as a criteria for determining whether to intervene or not.Occassionally a new customer complains. If a new client makes a complaint after their first or second order, it is best to intervene personally. Call the client, or visit them, and explain what you are doing to correct the issue. You should also get involved even if it is the new customer who is responsible for causing the problem they are complaining about. You should be aware that new customers are particularly sensitive if they have problems with their initial orders. This is true of both delivery delays and technical problems with the product.You know the old saying - it never rains but it pours. It is never just one thing that goes wrong, everything seems to go wrong at the same time. In situations where there has been a series of breakdowns you should intervene personally, but in doing so be careful not to take over completely from the sales person who manages that customer.Customer complaints need to be managed and resolved quickly. You should get involved in situations where it is taking too long to solve the problem. Stipulate a precise deadline after which you should become involved. Sales people should not go over the time frame set for receiving a customer complaint to its resolution. If they do, the case should land on your desk. You must also ensure that your sales people do not drag their feet and make the process longer because they are indifferent to the issue. If there is any delay, find out what the causes of this are. A complaint has to be dealt with just as carefully as an order - that is the foundation of effective complaint management and your sales training should cover the correct complaint handling techniques to be used.Occassionally the customer is actually at your dor, or on the end of the phone, asking to speak to you personally. Never attempt to get rid of them, you should intervene and solve the complaint. Never pick up the telephone thinking "Complaints are unpleasant, cost time, money and nerves..." Make sure that you find the right attitude, even towards reproachful clients. Remind yourself that complaints represent an opportunity and that the atmosphere is more important than the facts of the case.You must also get involved before the point at which a complaint turns from a complaint into a lawsuit. A lawsuit always has a fatal effect - someone wins and someone loses. If the client wins, you have to pay the costs. If you win, you may well have saved money, but you have also lost because you will have lost the client. You can still pull back from a law suit even at the last minute. Settlement is often suggested by the courts. But could you not have managed to find a compromise without the courts?So in summary, good customer relations requires on-going sales training for sales staff so that they can manage most complaints well, and also training for the sales manager so that they can recognise and respond appropriately to those occasions that demand they intervene personally.
