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Fevereiro 2020
Índice
Introduçã o / Enquadramento................................................................................................................................... 3
Complaints book............................................................................................................................................................ 7
Anexos............................................................................................................................................................................. 23
Conversation questions............................................................................................................................................ 24
Bibliografia.................................................................................................................................................................... 27
2
Introdução / Enquadramento
Objetivos
Conteúdos
Expressões idiomáticas
Complaints are never a happy occasion, particularly if you are trying to keep a client
or customer happy and you are struggling with the language.
It is important to remember that responding to a complaint always has
FOUR parts:
Apologize for the problem – no matter if you created it or not – no matter whether the issue is
true or not. What you are apologizing for is the fact that a customer is unhappy. That’s not
good for business.
Ask for the specifics of the problem – what happened or what went wrong.
Say that you will take action [and take it!], and
Check back with the customer later to make sure the problem was resolved to their satisfaction.
3. Take Action
I will send someone to take care of it.
We will send the correct order tomorrow.
Let me check with the shippers and see what happened.
I don’t know what happened, but I will get back with you later today
Let me straighten this out and I will get back to you today with the
solution.
Action taken
Consumer Complaints
All good managers want to hear about every complaint their customers have. Only when a
complaint has been expressed can the appropriate corrective action be taken. Without
Consider the following eight-step procedure for handling customer complaints in your
organization:
BY MATTHEW SWYERS
Customer complaints are inevitable. If you run a business that sells to the public no matter
how great your goods or services are the old adage will eventually be proven true: You
cannot please 100% of the people 100% of the time.
Most customer concerns can be dealt with simply by complying with the person’s reasonable
requests. From time-to-time, however, you will come across those customers who will
demand something that simply is unwarranted or impossible to deliver. No matter the issue
at the heart of the complaint it is important to remember these rules when resolving your
customer service issues:
1. Listen
Whenever you set out to handle a customer complaint the first thing that you must do is
listen. Listen to the customer to figure out why they are upset. Listen to the customer to
determine whether any of your policies were not abided by or if this is something outside or
not contemplated by your systems. Listen to what they want from you to resolve the issue. A
refund? A replacement? Someone else to replace their current service representative at your
company?
All too often we are defensive when dealing with customer complaints. Being defensive, at
least at the onset, can inhibit your ability to truly understand why the customer is not
satisfied
with your products. They will tell you the problem, how they think it should be resolved, and
give you a critical window into their thinking on the matter. So before you say anything,
before you attempt to explain anything, challenge their complaint, or offer a resolution to the
situation, listen.
2. Understand
Next, put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Given what you now know try and see their
point of view. Why did they come to you? Is there merit to their complaint? Is their proposed
resolution reasonable given the issue? Until you view the issue from their perspective you
cannot have a complete picture of the reason for the complaint. So always think, if I was in
their shoes how would I feel?
3. Elevate
Once you have heard the complaint and understand the basis for the same, elevate the
customer to a supervisor or manager where possible. If the issue is with the front-line
employee this will instantly remove some if not all of the customer’s acrimony towards their
current representative at the company allowing them to have a more open conversation with
someone else. Often this move alone is sufficient to alleviate some of the customer’s
concerns by instilling in them a sense of importance, that their complaint is significant enough
to be elevated to someone higher in the chain of command.
One note of caution, when elevating: be careful to fully inform the person the issue is being
elevated, because this is one of the relevant facts prior to having them speak with the
customer. If this is not done the new representative will be in a position which they must ask
the customer to repeat what happened. While most customers, as part of the venting
process, will gladly share their story again with the supervisor they should not be made to
feel that they must do so for the process to continue to run its course.
4. No Fighting
Defend if you must. But do not fight with the customer. What is the difference you may ask?
Often times it comes down to tone and respect. Recall, whether correct or not your customer
believes that they are correct. As such, they may be 100% wrong but fighting about the issue
will only exacerbate their complaint.
Your job in handling the matter is to listen, understand, and then discuss with the customer
their concerns in a calm and friendly manner while conducting an open discussion regarding
the issues complained of and how they will be responded to. Fighting with the customer will
never resolve the issue and will only lead to heightened aggression and anger on their part.
As such, calmly defend your policies or personnel if you must but do not permit the
conversation to erode into an argument at any point.
5. Resolution
Offer a resolution where possible. Once you have listened and understood the customer’s
complaint and have avoided fighting over the same divert the customer’s focus to how you
intend to resolve the matter. Here it is difficult to include all manners of resolution which can
be offered given the nature and scope of the goods and services which could be offered, but
some suggestions include offering a refund or partial refund of monies paid, if warranted.
Discounts on future goods or services is another popular remedy. If the issue is personnel
specific simply offering to change out their representative with another will often suffice.
The psychology of the offering of a resolution cannot be understated. Recall, the goal is to
resolve the customer dispute with the customer being fully satisfied with your goods or
services. Even if the customer’s complaint is unwarranted listening, understanding, elevating,
and offering some form of resolution allows the customer to feel that they have won, that
they were correct, and that your organization wants to make it right. For most, this will
resolve the issue and they will be satisfied. Unfortunately, however, there will always be those
select few that you cannot please no matter what you offer. For those, you must incorporate
resolve.
6. Resolve
In every customer service situation you will ultimately come to a point of what you can and
cannot do to address the issue. Most situations will be able to be addressed and the customer
issue resolved to their satisfaction. Unfortunately, from time-to-time, there will be issues
which simply cannot be resolved. Whether it is because the customer is requesting something
that is outside of your stated policies on such matters or are simply being unreasonable in
their requests. For these customers you must understand that despite your best reasonable
efforts to offer a reasonable resolution they are unwilling to join you in reality and,
accordingly, although our aim is always to please the customer if that which the customer
demands cannot be satisfied you must maintain your best offered solution and no more.
7. Writing
Ultimately, when all is said and done and a resolution has or has not been reached always
take the time to memorialize the same in writing. If, as in most cases, the matter is resolved
to the customer’s satisfaction, you will want to send the customer a brief follow-up email
confirming that the issue has now been resolved and the specific resolution involved. In
those unfortunate times when a solution cannot be reached, you want to send an email
clearly memorializing what transpired such that should the issue ever come back you can
quickly review the email and be versed in the same as needed.
8. Learn
Above all, use customer complaints as a manner to learn about potential flaws in your
systems. Maintain a manner of tracking customer complaints and the resolution thereof such
that, over time, trends or specific issues may be identified to the point that if you see one or
more specific situations occurring with any frequency systems can be amended or put into
place to address the same in the future before they become future complaints.
Written complaints – how to complain using e-mails
Customer Service
Representative: Hello, Big City
Electricity, how may I help you today?
Customer Service Representative: Thank you, what can I help you with?
Mr. Peters: I think I've been overcharged for the past month.
Customer Service Representative: I'm sorry to hear that. Why do you think we
charged you too much?
Customer Service Representative: Of course, thank you for calling this to our
attention. Now, how much do you usually pay for your electricity?
Mr. Peters: Thank you for your help in clearing this up.
Activities:
2. Role-play it.
Complaints – on the phone - dialogues
A: Thank you for calling LG Visa, this is Kelly speaking, how may I help you?
B: It was the purchase I made on the 12th of April for the amount of $288.00
B: The seller promised to deliver the merchandise in 2 days but I never received the
merchandise. I would like you to credit my account.
A: For you to dispute your charge and for us to credit you account, you must
write us a letter explaining what happened.
Activity: now role-play it (and use your camera to record it if possible). Then, analyse your
performance.
Face to face complaints – dialogue: product-specific complaint
Unfortunately, mistakes sometimes happen. When this is the case, customer service
representatives need to handle consumers' complaints. It's also important for customer
service reps to gather information to help resolve the problem. The following short dialog
provides some helpful phrases to deal with complaints:
Customer: Good morning. I purchased a computer from your company last month.
Unfortunately, I'm not satisfied with my new computer. I'm having a lot of problems.
Customer: I'm having problems with my Internet connection, as well as repeated crashes
when I try to run my word-processing software.
Customer Care Representative: Did you read the instructions that came with the
computer?
Customer Care Representative: How were you using the computer when you tried to
connect to the Internet?
Customer: I was trying to connect to the Internet! What kind of question is that?!
Customer Care Representative: I understand you're upset, sir. I'm just trying to
understand the problem. I'm afraid it's not our policy to replace computers because of
glitches.
Customer: I bought this computer with the software pre-loaded. I haven't touched anything.
Customer Care Representative: We’re sorry that you’ve had a problem with this
computer. Could you bring in your computer? I promise you we'll check the settings and
get back to you immediately.
Customer Care Representative: Is there anything else I need to know about this that I
haven’t thought to ask?
Customer: No, I'd just like to be able to use my computer to connect to the Internet.
Customer Care Representative: We'll do our best to get your computer working as soon
as possible.
Anexos
Conversation questions
The following information may help you. Study it.
Insisting
Threatening
Showing understanding
Making Excuses
Promising action
• Ok, I’ll look into it right away
• I’ll check the details and get back to you
Bibliografia
A. A. V. V., Business English, living language, for speakers of any language, New
York, Random House Company, 2005 – CD-ROM.
A.A.V.V., English Pro – Sales, Global Learning Systems, Medial Ediciones, s.l., s.d.
BLAKE, Gary, Quick Tips for Better Business Writing , New York, McGraw-Hill, Inc.,
1995.
HOLLET, Vicki, Quick Work: A Short Course in Business English, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
HOLLET, Vicki, Quick Work: A Short Course in Business English, Oxford, Oxford
University Press – CD-ROM.
HUGHES, John, Quick Work. Business English Course, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2002/2005
JONES, Leo; ALEXANDER, Richard, New International Business English,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
WRIGHT, Jon, Idioms Organiser – Organised by Metaphor, Topic and Key Word,
Boston, Thomson Heinle, 1999