The right way to say no to customers feature requests
Gathering feedback is important to improve current company services, but also comes with unrealisable feature requests. Working in customer support means it is in your area of responsibilities to politely reject their requests and say no.
The situations when it comes to disagreements between customers and their expectations to the product are often avoided by employees. Handling these requests is experienced as unpleasant, what leads to an automatic time delay for customers. Employees should be trained to say no, without feeling uncomfortable and without damaging the company’s reputation.
Depending on the customer and the type of request, different tactics have to be considered. Of course, customers with a high value, such as key accounts, have a higher chance to get a new feature built and implemented. But in general, there are some important points to be considered at any time, no matter, if it is a new feature request, improvements or how much value the customer has to the company.
1. Meet Client Expectations
Everyone in the customer support or client success department knows the unpleasant moment when you have to tell a client that his feature won’t be built. Whenever a success gap occurs, and the wish of the customer doesn’t fit to the companies goals or capabilities anymore, it is important to communicate carefully. For example, don’t give any hope or fixed times, when a request will be processed, to customers in advance. That way you can avoid to make wrong promises and it is getting more unlikely that customers are getting angry. Especially in the IT field, where bugs occur and functions and regulations are variating, is it difficult to estimate a reassure time for new features. According to Brady Nash, Owner, and CEO of the BNG Team, it is important to not set expectations, which can’t be met.
“Don’t set expectations you can’t meet.” — B. Nash (Owner/CEO BNG Team)
Furthermore, whenever important content for the customer is discussed on the phone, employees should send a written transcript to the client. This can be an Email, where requests are listed and confirmed again. Like this, customers do not only have a better overview of their requests, but also a more professional image of the company. Receiving an email directly after a phone call shows that the request is actually been added and processed.
In the previous phase already, customers should be clear about the product they purchase and not only be convinced by the sales department. The highest churn rate is directly after the on boarding and connected to misunderstandings during the purchase decision. Therefore it is important to communicate the existing features, as well as the vision and mission of the company correctly and honestly. Otherwise, a favourable long-term relation to the customers cannot be established.
2. Be Honest
Furthermore, it is not only enough to pass on feedback requests from customers but to actively act upon them. Customers want to stay informed about their request and require a solution as soon as possible. Giving clients the feeling of actively working on the request and informing them about updates helps to build a more personal and favourable relation to them.
While having a more personal relation to the customer, it is easier to say no to them as well. Whenever an idea is not realisable, it is important to directly inform the customer and not to keep their hope up unnecessarily. Even though it might be the easiest way, it is not always the smartest decision to never say no. Show empathy and explain to the customer, why the feature won’t be built in the future. The goal is it that the customer is seeing the company’s goals and attitude towards the request. Even if the client decides to cancel his contract, in the end, he is leaving due to the situation, but without ruining your reputation.
Sometimes customers can become mean or even insulting. Whenever a situation is getting intense, it is important for employees to stay calm and professional. It is not expected from them to stay on the phone and listen to all the complaints, but it is important to stay diplomatic throughout the whole conversation. There is always the possibility to call a customer back at a better time or to reschedule the appointment.
3. Proactive Help
As previously mentioned, showing empathy and understanding to the clients helps to deescalate difficult situations. Thus, an explanation of the denied request helps the customer to understand the decisions mde by the company.
Moreover, helping the customer as good as possible also means to look for alternatives with them. Searching for a workaround or third parties to help with the request shows interest and an active trying. Clients will be positively surprised by the engagement of the support and are more likely to accept the decision made by the company. It is important to focus on what you can do, rather than on what you can not change either way.
4. Reasonable Evaluation
Receiving feature requests is a great possibility for companies to improve their products and services. Also if requests are not accepted, it is useful to collect the feedback from every employee. It is possible to add tags to incoming messages in order to categorise different requests. Thus, repetitive inquiries of customers are important to implement in the future, in order to stay competitive. You can use third parties, such as Productboard, NomNom, Zendesk, Atlassian or Trello, to categorise your requests. Customers know the best and use the product the most. If a feature request comes at various times, it should be thought about building it.
