01
Emotional guidance
There is a phrase about communication that is very popular on the Internet, called "deal with the mood, and then deal with the matter", which can be said to be a golden sentence to deal with all communication conflicts.
Why?
Because when a complaint occurs, the buyer's expression of anger or disappointment, such as making a fuss, such as crying and abuse. The generation of such emotions is a self-protection mechanism that is still retained after tens of thousands of years of human evolution, and it is an instinctive response. From this point of view, there is no difference between human beings and lizards, as long as they are normal human beings, they will have the same emotions. But when the human brain is occupied by emotions, it is easy to make irrational behavior, the old saying "no good hand in battle, no good mouth" is this reason.
Therefore, when a complaint occurs, in the face of the buyer's strong emotions, the first thing the seller has to do is to identify with the buyer's emotional expression to channel and dissolve the emotions.
A very effective way of channeling emotions is "labeling", which is done after the other person has expressed his or her own experience, such as an oil leak in a car they just bought.
Then we can say, "It's unfortunate that this happened, and you must be feeling very unlucky."
Or, "Huh? How did that happen? That's so infuriating, an oil leak in a new car!"
When you label the other person's emotions directly with "bad luck" or "angry," the other person will think they are seen and understood by you.
Neurologists have done neuroimaging experiments on the brain, and when emotions are labeled, the activity of the lizard brain part of the human brain is significantly reduced, which means that people become more rational.
Next, the buyer will usually blah blah blah talk about how unlucky they are, how angry they are, you sellers must give a statement, and so on. At this point, as a seller must listen more, less to say, said the words out of the words are also emotional detachment. When buyers vent off emotions, it will naturally return to a rational state. At this point, the seller can enter the second step of complaint handling.
02
Confirmation of facts
When the buyer basically calmed down, the seller can start to "confirm the facts".
This is the core step in dealing with all communication conflicts, the key in this step is to be sure to confirm the facts of what happened, this process does not do any evaluation, just confirm the facts.
For example, in the case of the oil spill, we want the female owner to review all the steps she took after starting the car, what buttons she pressed, what operations she performed, what she saw and what she heard.
We've all heard another real-life incident like a joke from a female car owner before. There was a female car owner who was driving down the road and suddenly broke down, no matter what she could not start the car, the female owner called the 4S store and cursed and complained that the car she had just purchased had broken down. When the 4S store personnel arrived at the scene, they found out that the female owner didn't know that she had to refuel her car to drive and the car broke down because she ran out of fuel. So, confirming the facts of what exactly happened is what will help to solve away the problem that arose.
It should be noted that, in the confirmation of the facts of this stage, the seller to ask the same questions with empathy to ask questions, in the hope of helping the buyer to solve the problem of the starting point to figure out the facts of the incident, because the buyer's emotions have been calmed down, but at any time may be triggered.
03
Execution standards
Through the second step of the "confirmation of the facts", the core of the complaint, buyers and sellers have basically figured out, either the seller's problem, or the buyer's problem.
The next step is for both parties to discuss how to resolve the issue.
If it's the buyer's problem, such as the buyer doesn't know how to operate it, or misuse it, or even the buyer's unintentional or intentional damages and other reasons, then it will be the buyer's own responsibility, but the seller has to express regret at the same time, rather than treating it with an accusatory attitude. A more responsible way is to teach the buyer how to use it, and what precautions to take in using it, etc. A higher level of responsible practice is to teach the buyer at the moment, and then make a buyer's return visit after a period of time, and ask the buyer if he/she has encountered any problems in using it in the near future and needs help.
If it is the seller's problem, the standard should be enforced in accordance with national laws and regulations, or industry norms and so on.
For example, in the case of Mercedes-Benz oil leakage, the national regulations have the "Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law", the industry norms have the "three packages policy of the automobile industry", as well as Mercedes-Benz also has internal standards such as the factory specification of the product.
Sellers only need to clearly inform the buyer, after confirming the fact belongs to the scope of implementation of which standard, and then in accordance with the standard implementation can be.
In this case, neither the buyer nor the seller has to be embarrassed. As I've tweeted many times before, the advantage of negotiating to a "standard" is that it allows all stakeholders to protect their interests. For example, sellers can't victimize buyers with denials, buyers can't blackmail them with demands, and buyers and sellers can easily communicate the outcome to others behind them without fear of recrimination, because everyone has to follow the standard.
The above three steps are the way every seller should learn to deal with, this way not only can quickly solve the problem of customer complaints, sometimes can also make the complaints of the buyer "road to powder", and then become the seller's word-of-mouth promoter.