Don’t believe the old adage that ‘no news is good news’ as no one likes to be kept in the dark.

This especially applies when customers are paying for services or products.

Along with a lot of other commuters yesterday we experienced a two hour delay on the mainline trains. Even once the train departed, its journey was very slow with frequent unexplained stops.  It was bad enough that people’s plans were disrupted severely but the worst and therefore most frustrating part was the lack of information given from the railway company.

Even if the news is not what you want to hear it is certainly better than no news. Keeping customers informed of progress, even if this has been delayed, goes towards better customer service.

As service providers we think customer service is most important as hopefully happy customers will tell other prospective customers about the great service they have received.

Our tips for great customer service when things go wrong are:

  • Don’t wait for the customer to call you to find out what is happening – inform them as soon as you are aware of a problem.
  • Keep your customers up to date with their purchase/project/service – if there are timing problems be honest and keep them informed. Try to give a realistic adjusted time for completion.
  • Offer compensation eg. Discount on the current (and future) transactions as appropriate.
  • Make it easy for the customer to claim compensation eg. a form on your website.
  • Acknowledge any customer queries and claims as soon as possible.
  • Deal with the queries and claims as quickly as you can.

Hopefully things don’t go wrong that often but it’s how you deal with them that matters to your customers. Dealt with promptly and in a professional manner won’t stop your customers coming back to you in the future.