Handling Customer Complaints About Employees
How to Tactfully Discuss Customer Complaints with Employees
We all want our customers to be happy and to let us know when something has gone awry, but do you know how to successfully handle situations where multiple customers complain about a long-term employee?
This can put you in a difficult position, but if you do not handle the problem correctly, it will just keep happening. If you don’t confront the behaviors that lead to customer complaints, you will lose respect as a leader from not only the employee we are discussing, but your other team members as well. The bottom line is you need people on the front line that every customer views as courteous, knowledgeable and dependable. Following the steps below will help you in dealing with this difficult situation.
First, meet with the employee and discuss if he or she is aware of the complaints. Lead the discussion by asking the following type of question, “What do you feel has changed in the last two months that has triggered these complaints?”
Second, ask the employee if he or she sees these complaints as a problem. Without the employee’s agreement that the complaints are a problem, the employee will never be motivated to change this behavior.
Third, ask the employee for suggestions of what he or she is going to do differently so that customers do not describe him or her as rude or arrogant. In case the employee does not have suggestions, you may want to encourage her to involve you sooner before the problem escalates with the customer.
Fourth, leave the meeting having accomplished three things: 1) The employee is aware that you see his or her behaviors as a problem. 2) The employee and you have generated solutions or actions of what he or she is going to do differently so the problem does not occur again. And 3) The employee knows that you care about his or her success and value their contributions to the organization.
By the way, if the employee quits over this conversation, this is not the type of employee who truly cares about you or the company’s success.
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Filed Under: Communication, Customer Service, Leadership on March 15th, 2010
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