Having respect for your customers will ensure their faith in and loyalty to you and your business. Studies show that it is nine times more difficult to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing one, so it is critical to keep your current customers happy. Surveys, focus groups, and questionnaires are helpful ways to measure your customers’ perceptions of your business and to determine how to improve.

If a customer is dissatisfied, take action immediately to win back their confidence in the services that you provide. People like to know that their opinion counts and if they feel like you care about what they think, they will think positively of you and your business.

In just 60-seconds, you’ll learn how to manage upset customers and turn them into long-term, satisfied customers.

0:60    Stay Calm
Listen carefully and without interruption to your customers’ complaints. Acknowledge that there is a problem, and empathize with unhappy customers. Let them know what you can do for them and make them aware of all of their options. Always treat your customers with respect. Customers should feel that you are calm but concerned. Your attitude when dealing with upset customers should be professional, mature, pleasant, and reasonable.

0:46 Work at Gaining Loyal Customers
The number one reason that customers stop buying from a particular business is because someone at that business treated them poorly. Again, it is much more cost effective to retain loyal customers than to gain new ones. In order to create loyalty, you have to calm down upset customers and ensure them that you will work to find a solution that they deem acceptable. Let them know that their business is important. Thank them for their patience and cooperation. In many cases, it pays to reward upset customers in order to keep their business.