We are selling services, and can’t replace the product if it doesn’t work.
I understand this as you are selling products. I do not know what kind of products you are selling. But I do want to share a story of a marketing agency that had one client ordering 5000 t-shirts with their logo and a slogan on it. The sales agent visited the customer with sample t-shirts in different colors. They agreed on one specific color and the production order was given. When the customer received the 5000 finished t-shirts he was not satisfied with the tone of the color. Even if the sales agent could prove that the shirt he picked was the same, they apologized, sent new sample of colors and produced 5000 new ones. The customer was wrong, but happy, taking his business to this place over and over again.

If you sell appliances like refrigerators and larger items you would probably try to get it fixed for free. I know two companies that sell electronics and household appliances. One trade the product, fix it and sell the fixed one at a lower price. The other one tries to fix it first, and if this doesn’t work out, they trade it.

The customers have expectations, and as you say, the complaint is not always valid. Some customers are abusive and demanding and you will never make money from them. These customers should be given a map to the closest competition.

I think you should try to figure out a good strategy for great customer care. Ask your customers what they do expect as a research and find your own strategy. This will ensure that you treat your customers equal, and that you do not hesitate. I have one company downtown where I by most of my clothes. They change everything without asking why as long as I have the receipt. I think this is a great service. And it does not differ depending on who you talk to.

Where i work we often get upset customers because they are not satisfied with the product the bought. And we always try to determine the problem and see it from their point of view and treat them with respect.
But that doesn’t always do it as long as they don’t get what they expect and that is a new product.
If the complaint is valid we will give a new product but that’s not always the case so they say we are not giving them good service.

But on the other side we never get complains about the selling part we are only getting compliments about how we help the customers and do everything to get them their products.

So does that mean if i want to change the view of the customers on the service given after the sales that i always have to give them new products when the have a problem?

Whats your thought on that ?

Listening to upset customers is a great trick as you get them out of the emotional state. Talking with someone emotional is a waste of time. That is why you need them to calm down before communicating sense with them. You write: “Very rarely did we ever get an upset guest who was just a difficult person.” – That is most likely because you treat people with respect. You would not categorize people as jerks and had good reasons why the customers acted as they did. That is why you managed to have rarely encounters with difficult people. Very few people are just upset and difficult, if you understand the reason, communicate and understand you will have happy customers.

Good comment Kyle. Thank you. Keep reading.

I’ve never worked in sales, but I did work for four years at a water park. Quite often I would have guests come up who were upset about one rule or another since water parks, generally, have a lot of rules due to their high risk nature.

The first step that we always followed, and what we always trained out staff to do, was just simply to listen. Often this meant listening to an upset guest yell for five minutes, or more! However, an interesting thing would happen once they finished yelling. They would calm down! Once they got what they needed to off of their chest, we were quite often able to just explain why the rule existed and they would go, “ohhhh, that’s why…that makes sense,” and then they would be on their way.

That first part was key though. I’d say that of that remaining 10% who were not satisfied with that method, most fell into two categories. The first category was a guest who had been argued with instead of listened to initially. The second category was a guest who had been allowed to break the rule at first, and then had the rule enforced by another lfieguard. Very rarely did we ever get an upset guest who was just a difficult person.

Thanks for the good article,

-Kyle