It doesn’t matter what business you are in, you will eventually get unhappy customers. It could be a genuine complaint or it might be that the customer perceives there’s something wrong, but there actually isn’t.

It might be something outside your control, like a courier service, or the post office, or a third party who never did their part when fulfilling the order.

Here’s one way you can not only solve the problem, but turn it into a revenue opportunity.

Let’s say Mary calls in and is upset that the delivery is taking too long. There might be nothing you can do about that, but it’s important that customer feels their complaint is being taken seriously.

In sales, they call it being in the flow with the customer. In other words, you can’t win their trust if you start to push back. That will only make things worse.

But what if you handled it like this?

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m just checking, and it looks like you are quite right. It hasn’t been delivered — my apologies for that. Look, I’ll tell you what I can do. We are running a special on brand X widget at 25% off. Since you have been inconvenienced by this. I can give you a 50% discount as a way of saying sorry.”

You can phrase it however you like, but the most crucial thing is that it doesn’t come across as a pitch, but rather that the support person is doing the only thing she can do, which is to give a discount. It could be a:

• Discount on the next sale.
• A discount on something you can offer over the phone.
• It could be a related product. For example, the customer might have ordered a bed, and you give them a discount on pillows.
• It might be a free strategy call, which could lead to a sale.

The ways you can monetize an unhappy customer are endless, and best of all is that you change them from an unhappy customer to a happy one.

Warmest Regards

Mark McRae

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