Not all customers will contact an organisation to register a complaint, but the ones that do can significantly influence your brand’s reputation and perception.
Customers who suffer a bad service interaction are 50% more likely to share it on social media and 52% more likely to discuss it on an online review site. In a connected world, this can influence your prospect’s opinion about a brand and erode loyalty. That’s why contact centre agents must be well versed in dispute resolution tactics to politely, firmly, and effectively handle customer complaints.
Defining Dispute Resolution
You can define dispute resolution as a strategy that guides how agents resolve disputes between a customer and various organisational stakeholders (suppliers, sellers, logistics partners, etc.), determining the flowchart of escalation.
Disputes can arise due to a variety of reasons, ranging from non-fulfilment of product or service obligations to payment-related disputes. It is only when a regular query isn’t resolved at the first interaction (or at least the second) that a customer will raise a dispute.
In fact, according to some estimates, only 1 in 25 unhappy customers will directly raise a dispute.
You can also have internal disputes in a contact centre – for example, an agent raising a compliant regarding performance-based compensation – but these are better categorised as workplace conflicts.
5 Best Practices for Dispute Resolution in a Contact Centre
- Bring in a neutral third party – This is useful when the customer has been talking to the same agent over multiple interactions, without arriving at a resolution. Even if the agent is qualified for the case, a third party can bring an objective view and reassure the customer
- Keep a compilation of facts ready – Accurate and authentic information helps to strengthen your case and convince the customer. Use your CRM to extract conversation records, tracing the issue to its roots and explaining why the conclusion you suggest makes sense
- Be open to negotiation – A customer who drops off due to a complaint (vs. an organic loss of interest) is a permanent dent on your bottom line. That’s why it is recommended to negotiate and offer outside-the-box solutions, even if it is a simple gift card, to create a win-win scenario
- Encourage agents to ask for help – A workplace environment that creates pressure to get it right every time could make agents feel like they have to be self-sufficient. Instead, have team leads and supervisors check-in on conversations and destigmatise the act of seeking help by decoupling it from the agent’s performance KRAs
- Train agents on conversation best practices – Simple acts like staying focused during a conversation (i.e., not letting the customer go off on a tangent), avoiding reactions to negative comments/emotions, showing empathy, and expressing oneself neutrally can go a long way in preventing disputes in the first place
Disputes Aren’t Inherently Bad
The fact that a customer has raised a dispute instead of publicly commenting on social media or abandoning the brand altogether is a sign of salvageable engagement. The above best practices will help you capitalise on this and ensure customer retention.
