Ruined Vacation, Happy Customer
How can you build amazing stories with your customer support?
What do you do when an angry customer calls you and complaints to you about a bad experience?
Even the angriest customers are usually relieved when they know that someone at the brand really cares about their experience. This one thing could be the difference between getting valuable insights and getting bad reviews online. But then, if you are a customer support executive you already knew this. The tougher part though is, how do you show your consumers that you really care about their problem, that their feedback is valuable? That it is your job to do what is necessary to make their life better?
Let’s take an example — A consumer has a terrible experience with a rental car company. In fact, the consumer’s vacation is ruined because of a problem with the booking. Back from the vacation, the consumer is still furious with the company. So far, it is a predictable turn of events.
The consumer then gets a call from the company. And everything changes. Now, after it has all been done and dusted, the consumer is so happy with the brand. Wait, what? How?
The customer receives a call from the company and in the customer’s own words
“..had someone from Avis — with real heart and understanding of the horrible ordeal… impressed me, strong in real service..”.
Not that such stories are isolated. A growing number of businesses have started taking a lot of care of their customers’ experiences. In fact, these brands are consistently converting a customer complaint into customer experiences worth remembering.
“..the company responded with a resolution in record time”
“Very productive”
You do want your angry complaining customers to go back with these statements about you!
Customer support is complicated. Businesses know that. In spite of all the costs and policy restrictions, many brands want to go out of their way to give great customer experiences. And they do deliver such experiences. But the problem is that such experiences get lost in the sea of negative reviews, rants, and complaints online.
No matter how good your support is, a bunch of negative ratings will change consumer’s perception about your brand. And there’s nothing much you can do about it.
The problem with online reviews
Part of the problem is due to the broken online review system of today.
For one, people are bound to share more negative experiences than positive ones. So the average rating of even the best brands out there is lower than reality.
Secondly, many of the products and services require third part co-ordinations like delivery, installation, post-purchase service, etc. This causes frustration for the customer. And usually, it is the e-commerce brand or the retailer that gets most part of the blame.
Thirdly and most importantly, many consumers use the review sites as a way to get back at a brand for a bad experience, to report a problem they face. When the business does take care of such complaints, not many consumers go back to update the original review. So any great work done by the company in addressing the problem is lost. New customers seldom hear about such experiences online.
What can be done?
For one, businesses can be more transparent about their customer support processes. Consumers do not just want to know if your products are good or if you are trustworthy, they want to know if your customer support is good as well. Especially if you are growing brand with not many reviews to your name, many customers are more worried about your support than your product.
“When it comes to buying something online I always look at the reputation of the company I am buying from. If they provide great support but they don’t have as mature of a product as the competitor that has terrible support I will tend to buy from the former than the later” — Frank, an e-commerce customer
Showing more information on how you handle a complaint real time, could greatly boost your brand perception.
But then, doing so has its own set of problems.
- You cannot have private conversations on review sites today to contact the customer real time and have a quick conversation.
- There are limitations to what kind of response you can share on the review sites owing to privacy reasons.
- Even after a great resolution, you still cannot control whether the customer updates the original review. Most of the times, the original 1-star rating remains on the internet, forever.
Reviews focusing on the resolution
This is exactly why we built No No No. No No No is a “resolution review” platform where customers rate and review the way businesses solve their problems. But that’s just the starting point.
A fair and transparent resolution process
This is how No No No works —
- Customers can register their consumer problems or complaints as we call it, on the platform.
- The brand in question gets notified on the problem and is given direct access to the customer.
- Both the customer and brand can message each other, exchange information — all on the platform.
- And once the problem gets resolved, the user rates the brand on the resolution provided.
While brands have a choice to communicate with consumers privately, many also publicly comment on the complaint. This gives other consumers a chance to see how fast a business responds and how it deals with typical consumer problems.
Right now, consumer-focused e-commerce brands like Mapiful, Houzz, etc., are using the platform to be more transparent with their customer support process. In fact, e-commerce companies like Mapiful plan to display the “No No No resolution score” on their website. This communicates to their customers that they are customer focused, transparent and ready to go any distance to give a great experience.
Even traditional retailers like Costco, Kroger, etc. are using No No No to address this exact problem of online reviews today.
On the other side, consumers are finding it really easy and convenient to engage in conversations with brands and solve their problems using No No No.
Online reviews should make it possible for businesses to give a great customer experience and be known for the positive outcomes online.
By focusing on transparency and capturing such experiences, businesses now have the chance to convert a customer complaint to an experience worth remembering.
If you are an e-commerce business having trouble with online reviews, then we should talk. Reach out to us at customercare@nonono.com and we will respond.
