If we all had perfect companies, we’d never hear of complaints, but in the broadband industry, of course no one’s perfect. We’ve all ran into customer service experiences that weren’t favorable that we had to work through. Remember before the Internet was popular, to make a complaint about a bad product or service, you likely had to call the company on the phone, complain until your head hurt, and slam the phone down? Even today that type of complaining is not too effective because it’s very difficult to get the slamming reaction of a phone when you have to tap a screen to end a call. Now, add in online platforms for complaining, and a different monster has been created. So, the question you have to ask yourself is: How do I stop online complaining from my customers?

You Have to Be (Almost) Everywhere

When customers complain about bad experiences with your products or services, it’s generally because something went wrong, and you have to be available to them to correct that wrong. You probably offer phone, website, and email support so that customers can contact you with issues, but what about other avenues such as chat, social media, forums, etc.? Providing a variety of options eases the burden of customers not being able to contact customer service when they have a problem. The more options customers have, the more likely they will be able to have their issues addressed when they initially occur thus preventing them from taking the next step in their complaints.

React to the Problem Immediately

Customers don’t just contact customer service to have chats about the weather and where they are vacationing next Spring. They want their issues to be acknowledged and for someone to start providing them with answers or at least give them some type of direction. The longer customers’ problems aren’t acknowledged, the more they are likely to start stewing and spewing. Don’t let your inactivity to a problem result in this.

Know Your Complainers

We all have our levels of complaining, so the type of approach you take to addressing an issue has to begin with the types of complainers that you have. Just in case you were wondering, here’s an infographic on five types of social media complainers to get you started. Once you’ve identified the type of complainer that you have, then you can plan your course of action on how to address their issues. At some point, you’ll probably encounter the ultimate complainer that will make you go back to the drawing board in your approach, until then, good luck!

Have you had any bad experiences with customers complaining online? Share them!