Customer Service: Part II

Continuing with our Week of Customer Service, we now turn to look at two important facets of this: Active Listening and Handling Complaints.

Active Listening and Questioning Skills

Ensuring that the customer knows that you are listening to what they are saying is crucial to gaining their confidence. The following skills will help you to use active listening and questioning to help to gain their trust and rectify the issues that they are talking to you about.

Space                    

Give the customer space to tell their story. Don’t feel that you have to constantly be speaking, and, most definitely, never interrupt the customer.

Verbal Nods                

Show that you are listening and ‘present’ with the customer through verbal nods (eg Mm-hmm, A-ha etc). Verbal nods are especially useful when the customer cannot see you.

Echoing                  

Highlight key points that the customer has made by echoing what they have said.

Reflecting                  

Show that you can understand the customer’s emotions by reflecting how they are feeling. (eg I can understand that this has been very upsetting for you.)

Summarising

Once the customer has told you their story or point of view, highlight that you were listening by summarising and paraphrasing what you have been told. This will help to ensure that you have understood everything that the customer has said, and prompt them to give you any additional information that they may have forgotten.

Questions                  

Vary your use of Open and Closed Questioning to allow the customer to tell their story and gain all of the information that you need.

Remember:

Open Questions…

• Solicit more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or other one word response
• Aim to get someone talking
• Useful for general information
• Common lead-ins are what, how and why

Closed Questions…

• Solicit ‘yes, ‘no’ or other one word responses
• Limit talking and control direction of conversation
• Useful for gaining specific information
• Common lead-ins are who, when, did and which

Handling Complaints

It is, unfortunately true that there are times when things don’t always happen as they should. 

At these times it is particularly important to be confident to deal with the patient / customer as the quicker and more efficiently a complaint is dealt with and responded to, the easier it usually is to fix it both for the customer and also for our reputation.

When someone complains to you it is important to remember that:

• The complaint is not a personal attack on you (even if the complainant is trying to make it seem like that).
• Customers have a right to make a complaint.
• People have bad and stressful days, and sometimes these contribute to the complaint
• You should try to prepare mentally and emotionally to deal with the complaint

Handling Complaints - the LAST model

Listen 

Positive body language, active listening – don’t interrupt

Ask questions 

Using the questioning techniques outlined above

Sympathise 

Give a sincere sympathetic statement (explore difference between sympathy and admitting guilt).

Take action to resolve the complaint 

Resolve the complaint, but know you limits and ways you will be able to escalate the complaint if it is beyond them. Don’t forget to keep any promises you make, and never to over-promise. 

Also, don’t forget to log the conversation if necessary to ensure that the conversation, when it took place, who was present and its outcome has been recorded.

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