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Chapter 15. How to Answer Complaints

If your customers are worth having, they are worth satisfying and if your goods are worth selling, it is worth your while to demonstrate that fact to your customers, even after they have bought your offerings and you have their money. No legitimate business transaction is really completed until the customer is satisfied with his purchase. A satisfied old customer often represents more potential business than a book full of untried prospects. If you have given him a square deal, he never stops saying good things about your business; but if you have left him dissatisfied, he never stops driving it away.

And it is not such a hard matter to show a man that you have given him at least all you have agreed to give him, if you go about t in a courteous, tactful way. Most people have more than a spark of reasonableness in them and an ability to recognize a fair proposition when they see it. If they haven't, they haven't the possibilities of being good customers and no concession, however generous, would ever satisfy them.

Good answers to complaints, like good collection letters, are largely a matter of attitude. There is no use assuming a high and mighty position and trying to make all your customers conform to your ideas of what a square deal is. It is better to assume a fair but open-minded position and then show each complainant that he really sees things as you do after all.

Neither is there anything to be gained by allowing yourself to become aroused over anything that a man with a kick may write you. For back talk simply aggravates the customer instead of pacifying him and leaves the grievance farther from settlement than it was before. And what is more you ought not to give the unreasonable kicker the satisfaction of knowing that he has stirred your temper.

One thing, do not be too suspicious of every complaint that comes over your desk. Remember that when the customer wrote his letter, he believed he had cause for doing so, and that the chances are he did have. Remember that most people want to be square with you, that most people are honest, and that by far the greater share of the complaints you get have a real cause at bottom. The fault may not be yours, but that is no reason why you should snap up a man for telling you about it. If you are not to blame, the proper thing to do is to find out where the trouble lies, and help the customer to straighten out the difficulty.

And even though a man seems to have no cause for complaint, be just as good natured about showing him where he is wrong as you would if he had a real grievance against you. Everyone else feels about the same as you do when you get a complaint that appears unjust and unwarranted. Your first impatience prompts you to say to yourself: Oh, Ill show this fellow. Ill let him know that he cant talk that way to me. Ill write him a letter that he wont forget in a month.

And suppose you do. He gets the letter, reads it, lays you out good and plenty to everyone within hearing distance and fires back your goods And the remotest chance of ever making a god customer out of him is gone.

But suppose you say to yourself when you get a letter like that: Now, if this man knew as much about business as I do he wouldn't make a complaint like this. He writes this way either because he's ignorant or propriety and business courtesy or because he doesn't realize that mistakes will happen in the best regulated businesses. So Ill write him a letter that will wake him up, maybe, to what a business transaction really is. And Ill do it by giving him an example of cordial business courtesy. Then just carry out that idea, and you'll not only feel better about it yourself, but the chances are your attitude will bring back a customer who was ready to slip away at the slightest further provocation.

All genuine complaints can pretty nearly be traced down to two sources: real grievances and misunderstandings, the latter often due to ignorance of business methods or requirements. In either case it is up to you to settle the complaint satisfactorily and retain the good will of the customer.

And to do this, there are certain points that you must invariably consider. In the first place, answer promptly. An immediate reply goes a long way toward impressing a man with your sincere desire to see him satisfied. If he isn't specific enough in his complaint to enable you to answer fully, write at once for further information. If it is going to take you several days to investigate, write him first and tell him what you are doing. Every day that a complaint hangs over it becomes increasingly hard to handle, while quick attention will preclude many possibilities of future unpleasantness.

Second, take the complaint seriously. For instance, if a man orders twenty reams of paper from you and on receipt of it writes that it is not like the sample he ordered from, don't say: Dear Sir: Your eyesight must be going back on you. The paper you ordered is certainly identically the same stock as the sample you named. Take it to the window and look again.

If you do that you not only insult his intelligence but you may be getting yourself in bad for there's just a chance that a mistake was made in the stock or shipping room and that the customer is right.

Better write him something like this:

Dear Mr. Blake:

We are surprised to learn that the Golden bond does not seem to match exactly the sample from which you ordered. Could you by any chance have gotten this confused with Gordon bond which is right next to it in the sample book? These two lines are very similar in finish and the fact that there is also a similarity in the names has given rise to errors of this kind once of twice before. I wish you would refer to the book and see whether this might be the cause of the discrepancy.

If it is not and you will send us a sample of the order you received, we will have the trouble looked up here immediately. We are always very careful to check over outgoing stock and see that it is just what is ordered, but we realize that an error might have been made somewhere in the process of packing and shipping and we will be more than glad to correct it.

See the difference? That not only protects you but it shows the man your serious interest in putting matters right.

The next vitally important point is that you take the customers viewpoint. Look at the trouble through his eyes. Just as in a sales letter you can win a prospects confidence by opening with a statement that he recognizes as a matter of fact and then from that point gradually leading him to your proposition, so in answering a complaint, you can start out by agreeing with him and gradually lead him around to your way of looking at the question. If you don't if you state your position first and try to drag him to it, you are sure to antagonize.

A publisher sold a business book to a clerk in a railway office and the young man on receiving it complained that while the volume might be all right for a man in an established business, it was of no practical value to him.

Now the publisher might have answered that young man after this fashion: Dear Sir :

Don't think that because the book seems of no use to you, we are going to take it back and refund your money. You certainly understood the nature of this book before you ordered it and if you didn't want it, that was the time to say so instead of sending it to you and after the deal is closed. Under the circumstances, we cannot take the book back.

Understand that's what he might have said because that's just the tone in which many a complaint is answered every day. But he actually wrote the young man in this manner:

Dear Mr. Gimbel:

I believe I understand perfectly just how you feel about the book. You feel that because your position is a detail one, because your work is limited in its scope, the book is too comprehensive to help you very much just now. And that would seem, at first though, a very just objection. But in reality, because your work is limited now, and because the book is comprehensive, arent you that very man the book will help most?

Every man wants to get out of the rut, to grow, to develop into something better. Yet who is the man who wins promotion? Is it the clerk whose work is limited to his own routine of details? No, it is the man who knows not only his own work, but that of the man above him. And that is just what this book will enable you to learn. For it gives you the experiences of the most successful men in the country, it describes in detail their methods and the results.

And so it ran on, showing the customer exactly how he could put the book to profitable use.

Now in reply to either of those letters the young man would have kept the book; but in the first instance he would have kept it because he had to, in the second he did keep it because he wanted to. And that is the difference between the effect of a poor complaint letter and a good one.

Another vitally important point do not argue with anybody. If the customer is in the wrong, show him courteously where he is wrong, but explain, do not argue. If a customer writes you that goods he ordered of you to be sent by express two weeks before, have not been received and that he doubts whether you ever sent them, don't reply by saying:

If the goods you ordered have not reached you, it is certainly due to no fault of ours. We sent them promptly and hold the express receipt to prove it. You should know that goods are often lost by the express companies even though the greatest care is shown in preparing them for shipment. Under the circumstances, we think you are hardly warranted in accusing us of not having sent them. When we say a thing you may depend upon it. If you doubt our responsibility or standing, you may write to the First National Bank of this city or look us up in Dun s or Bradstreet s.

However, inasmuch as you say you did not get the goods, we are duplicating the order and would ask you to notify us if the first order shows up.

This letter, which is typical of many that go through the mails every day, illustrates not only the bad policy of arguing with your man, but also the mistake of first antagonizing him and giving him insulted injury back talk and then in the end granting him what he asks.

If you are going to concede the justice of his complaint at all or if you are going to grant him his claim simply as a favor, do it cheerfully and make the customer realize that you are giving him more than what is justly coming to him.

Write to this man whose goods have not reached him, something in this style:

Dear Mr. Chapman:

You are certainly justified in complaining over not having received the goods you ordered by express fully two weeks ago. You have been very considerate in waiting so long, and we appreciate fully how you feel about the matter now.

It seems to us that there can be no question that the fault lies with the express company. The express receipt we hold shows that the goods were received by them in good condition the very day your order reached us. We knew you were in urgent need of this stock and we made a special request for quick service in selecting and packing it.

As your experience has probably shown you, many concerns hold that their responsibility ceases the moment the goods are turned over to the express company. However, we always consider the interests of our customer as more important than a technical privilege of this kind and we never consider a transaction closed until the goods are received and found to be entirely satisfactory.

So we are having a duplicate shipment packed and forwarded to you today. We are confident that these goods will reach you almost as soon as this letter, and in perfect condition.

The matter of delay in the previous shipment we shall take up with the express company at once and shall have them trace the goods. In the meantime, should they chance to reach you we will thank you to return them to us, charges collect.

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Century Tailoring Company, Indianapolis, Ind.

Gentlemen:

The suit which you just sent us for Mr. E. F. Dickinson has arrived in bad condition. The lower part of one trouser leg is badly scorched. This was undoubtedly done by the man who finished and pressed the suit.

It is impossible for us to alter or remedy this in any way, so we are returning the trousers to you by today's express and would ask that you immediately replace them, as Mr. Dickinson is an old and valued customer and this delay is seriously inconveniencing him.

Very truly yours, Henry T. Bridges

and

Dear Sir:

We have your letter of the 25th and have carefully examined the trousers which you have returned.

After examination we can confidently say that it is impossible for the trousers to have been damaged in the way you suggest. We employ electric irons for all our pressing and they are scientifically heated so that they never reach a temperature hot enough to scorch the surface of the most delicate material. The iron may even be left in one position for a long time without scorching the cloth in the slightest degree.

The trousers were undoubtedly damaged in the shop of your local tailor where you sent them to be pressed, as it is a comparatively easy matter to scorch a fabric with the old fashioned tailors goose.

While we feel that we are in no way responsible, we have nevertheless decided to replace the trousers with a new pair. These will be shipped to you Thursday.

Trusting that they arrive without delay and promising you that this will not happen again, we are

Yours very truly,

and

Dear Mr. Bridges:

It seems that those very orders on which we are most anxious to please are the ones on which the annoying little accidents occur.

We were keenly desirous of giving Mr. Dickinson a suit he would feel proud of. He has not only been a good and valued customer of yours, but think of the suits he has ordered through you from us.

We are totally at a loss to understand how this accident could have happened. But why try to explain it? The time we would spend investigating, we have spent in rushing through the pair of trousers to replace the pair you returned.

We will get these to you be express Wednesday. Please apologize to Mr. Dickinson for us and make the apology as we would were we on the ground. In closing we can only assure you that we will be doubly careful in the future.

Very truly yours,

These three letters are an excellent example of how trade may be lost through untactful handling of a complaint and how it may be saved when skill and care are used. The first letter was sent by a local agent for made-to order clothes to the house he represented. It was to his mind at least, a just complaint. But observe how a correspondent at the house answered it. business.

By arguing with the man, and attempting to show him how impossible it was for such an accident to occur in the firms shop, he virtually accuses the dealer of covering a blunder of his own. Then following all this, though still protesting the firms non-responsibility, he admits that they are complying with the request and sending a new pair of trousers. And even more unpardonable, he says in the closing paragraph promising that this will not occur again, which practically admits the fault to be the firms after all. Is it any wonder that the dealer, who had long been a good and profitable customer, decided at once to place another firms sample book on his counter?

But suppose the complaint had been answered in the manner suggested in the third letter. Here the writer immediately concedes the justice of the mans complaint, expresses sincere regret and without the suggestion of protestation or argument, shows a cooperative spirit by rushing the new trousers to him. Even though the house may not have been at fault, it recognizes here the value of the dealers and the customers patronage and friendship. Such a letter would doubtless have meant many a dollar to the firm.

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There you have an answer that not only satisfies the customer in every point, but it is bound to make him realize that you are more than fair, and the incidental talk about your service gives the letter a little sales value that the customer isn't likely to forget.

Possibly the best way to get the right attitude in answering a complaint is to stop and consider how you would handle the customer if he came personally into your office. Certainly you wouldn't pick a quarrel with him, you wouldn't let yourself be other than courteous and polite throughout his call. And you would take him all through the house if necessary just to demonstrate how sincerely desirous the firm is of giving him a square deal.

Remember that the next time you answer a complaint. Picture the customer beside your desk. Then talk to him. You'll find your old time itch to be vindictive gradually disappearing and the results vastly more satisfactory to you and the customer alike.