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How to turn an angry customer into a loyal one

Sarah Simon, senior director, customer experience consulting at Confirmit, explains that while a CX program is a valuable component of a business' long-term success toward continued customer satisfaction, it's all too easy to focus on chasing the latest shiny new CX metric.

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March 12, 2019

By Sarah Simon, senior director, customer experience consulting, Confirmit

It's no secret that an angry customer is a problem for all retail organizations. Not only is the individual unlikely to shop with you in the future, but when you add word-of-mouth to the equation, one person's negative experience can be easily amplified.

With traditional word-of-mouth reaching around 12 people, online and social networking word-of-mouth reaches a massive 69 times that, averaging around 825 people. To alleviate customer dissatisfaction, many successful businesses immediately look at their customer experience program — a logical approach in theory. After all, a CX program ensures regular surveying and internal alignment on the customer journey. So all of your customers will be happy, right? Unfortunately, it's not that easy.

Don't get swept away

The high-profile and attention-grabbing aspects of CX tend to take priority — things like the latest NPS score — for example. And that's fine. But there must be more to it than that. The goal must be delivering an integrated experience across all channels. And somehow, the contact center gets overlooked in this regard. Perhaps too many years of being seen as a cost center means businesses overlook its innate value — that it is a frontline department, dealing with customers day-in, day-out. Often unhappy customers who've exhausted other channels in their search for a result.
The result? A disjointed customer experience. More importantly, a huge lost opportunity for earning revenue from an existing customer base — one that could easily remain engaged and loyal with the right approach.

Embrace the opportunity of the call center experience

With the advent of automation in call centers, simple customer questions are now being answered by technology. Customer service teams are no longer tasked with providing answers to questions such as: When will my return be processed? Or, what's my tracking number? Instead, their time is now freed up to answer the tougher questions that technology can't handle. Chances are, when a customer reaches a representative over the phone, they're already angry, which puts your call center in a unique position to address ‘customer rage.' By evolving the call center from its role as a conduit for information into a catalyst for action, companies have the opportunity to deal with customer dissatisfaction and add real value to the process.

Call center teams need to be empowered to customer input and articulate the customer experience, and the call center should be an integrated part of any strategic CX program. The call center needs to be positioned as a proactive tool, able to not only gather information from customers, but to disseminate that information across the organization so it can be put to use. Most critically, though, it's about ensuring any activity that gathers customer feedback isn't implemented as a quick ‘box ticking' exercise that doesn't add value. The call center should be a specific stage in an action-driven corporate plan with specific outcomes, targets and KPIs. Service representatives need to focus not only on the immediate request at hand, but be proactive in anticipating and addressing future needs. Doing so can bring you one step closer toward happy customers.

Closing the loop on available data

The call center is the prime location to capture insight from your customers. By looking closely at contact center records, emails, complaints processes and CRM databases, you have a wealth of data at your fingertips. This feedback can provide early warning signs of dissatisfied and at-risk customers. With this data, urgency is key. Often, however, companies don't act on customer problems or complaints until it's too late, for example, if the customer cancels a service or switches to a competitor. One additional way to combat this type of lull is by setting up an action management process. A set workflow, supported and automated by technology, will enable you to analyze customer feedback as soon you receive it and set alerts to immediately respond to issues. It gives you the opportunity to proactively close the loop and positively influence customer retention.

It's important that businesses focus on and leverage the data available to them, rather than wasting precious resources — and most importantly, customers' time and good will — to collect more. If you're already dealing with an angry customer, you should avoid asking them more questions.

In summary

While a CX program is a valuable component of a business' long-term success toward continued customer satisfaction, it's all too easy to focus on chasing the latest shiny new CX metric. Instead of getting swept up in numbers, think about the actual experience you're offering at critical touchpoints like the contact center and how to improve it. And don't lose the urgency. You need to ensure that your alerts are on-time, being acted upon, and communicated back to the customer.

It's also important to remember that the customer experience — contact center or otherwise — is about more than surveys. There are some great examples out there about using big data to be pro-active about the customer experience. Companies who pre-empt shipping delays because of weather issues, for example, are providing gift vouchers or other treats before the delay has even taken place. The result is that customer expectations are high now, and they expect that fundamental areas like the contact center will get it right every time.