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3 Ways to Avoid Unhappy Customers

Develop routines and tracking systems that alert you to problems early

Few marketing strategies can improve upon happy customers telling friends and neighbours about your company's great products or superior service. Word-of-mouth referrals are highly effective and cost you nothing.

But unhappy customers can have a big impact on your business too – and not in a good way. You may never see your unhappy customer again. If they share their negative experience, you may lose potential customers too.

To err is human, of course. But putting systems in place to avoid errors and oversights that lead to disgruntled customers should be a priority.

There are several ways to do this:

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Establish a follow-up routine. Whether it is a phone call or a quick e-mail, make the effort to follow-up with customers when appropriate. Ask them how the product you sold them is working out or whether they are totally satisfied with the service you provided. It is a nice customer service gesture – but also provides an opportunity to hear about any negative experiences so that you can correct the situation and "save" a customer relationship.

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Track returns and customer feedback. If you notice that a particular product is frequently returned to your store, you can investigate, make adjustments if necessary, or even discontinue it. If you provide a service rather than a product, include a customer comment card with your invoice or post an e-mail address for customer feedback on your Web site. Monitoring the responses will help you spot any potential service issues that need to be addressed. Even a customer with a legitimate complaint will appreciate a fast and reasonable response from you.

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Escalate ignored cases. From a customer standpoint, there is probably nothing worse than contacting a business about a problem and never getting a response. But it happens. Forms can be lost or misfiled and e-mails inadvertently deleted. If this situation happens frequently, it may be time to consider a software solution such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition. With Microsoft CRM you can set up a workflow rule to escalate a neglected case and help make sure cases are handled in a timely manner.

Preserving Customer Relationships
Follow-up, return tracking and case escalation can all be automated with Microsoft CRM. The customer service module promotes more efficient and effective customer interactions by enabling employees to respond more quickly to service issues and easily pull up complete customer information.

Microsoft CRM helps maintain happy customers and avoid the unhappy ones by revealing ways you can improve your operations. The data you collect with Microsoft CRM can provide a picture of key problems, challenges, and areas of dissatisfaction among customers. It can also document the amount of time and effort your staff spends providing service to those customers.

In other words, it can take the guesswork out of what makes your customers happy – or unhappy.

About Microsoft CRM for Small Business
Microsoft CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition is designed to operate with Windows Small Business Server 2003. It can be installed quickly and configured through an easy-to-use wizard. You can also migrate customer information stored in Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager.

In addition to a customer service component, Microsoft CRM also features sales and marketing modules. You can easily adapt any of the modules to meet the unique needs of your business.

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Microsoft Small Business Specialists can help design a Microsoft CRM system that is right for your business. They can integrate software from non-Microsoft vendors, design the right hardware system, and design services to help ensure smooth implementation. Learn more.