[Complaint Case Sharing]Complaint Handling Skill – Script Writing Skill

About 2 months ago, the engine oil leakage incident of the Mercedes-Benz was raging on the Internet. I will briefly describe the story: the customer purchased the 660,000 Mercedes-Benz sedan in 4S Store, and found that the engine was leaking oil just 5 minutes after purchase. (the customer didn’t even drive the car out of 4S store). The 4S store staff told customer they will give her refund. Customer went back home and waited for solution for 15 days. During those days, the solution from refund became to replacement than to replacing the engine according to after-sales Three-Guarantee policy. The customer did not accept the final solution, so went to 4S Store to defend rights. The video was posted on the Internet by netizens and triggered public attention. Mercedes-Benz officially issued a statement on the Internet, let's take a look:

Statement   Since acknowledged the customer unpleasant experience, we pay high attention and are doing deep investigation to know more details. Whatever, we are sorry about the customer experience, it’s contrary to the principle that the Mercedes-Benz brand adheres to.   We have sent a special working group to Xi'an to get contact with customer directly as soon as possible and strive to achieve a satisfactory solution on a reasonable basis.   Ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of customer is not only our first priority in our business operation but also business principles adhered to by all distributors. We and all distributor will keep listening to customer feedback and continuously optimize customer experience.

Firstly, “Whatever” can have different understandings by different people like: no matter if it’s the company’s fault; Regardless of whether the user is legitimately defending or malicious extortion; no matter whether the company handles the case in wrong manner, or the user is unreasonable and grasps a small problem and deliberately makes things big; whether our company is not able to stand in the Three Guarantees, or the user’s appeal Interpretation of the Three-Guarantee. All in all, no matter who is right or wrong, or even if we are wrong, this customer does not need to be like this. Now we apologize anyway...
 
Be careful about using “whatever”, it can have many meanings or bad understandings.
 
Secondly, “strive to achieve a satisfactory solution on a reasonable basis.” The expression “on a reasonable basis” is very common in the statement. It is a cautious expression of self-protection of the enterprise, with a strict and calm lawyer's tone, rather than a passionate service term. This sentence means that Mercedes-Benz is prepared for user to make various unreasonable demands in the negotiations. If the Mercedes-Benz solution fails to meet the user's demands, the event has not been understood by many parties, and the media continues to ferment, it could be due to customer’s unreasonable demands.
 
Thirdly, "ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of customers is the first priority in our business operations." The "legal rights and interests" issue is the same as the second point, which is cautiously expressed by enterprises. Mercedes-Benz only guarantees the legitimate rights and interests of users, and illegal interest claims are not our top priority. It is also a legal statement that is strictly stated and cold.
 
Obviously, the statement is drafted by lawyer adopting a rational tone, which largely safeguards the company's rights and interests, but ignores the consumer's feelings. From the perspective of ordinary consumers, this statement is obviously not sincere. Why will consumer feel that the statement is not sincere enough? - Because this statement ignored human feelings.
 
After reading this case, we as a member of after-sales team, communicating with customer is our daily work, and we will also face all kind of complaints. How can we appease complaining customer so as to avoid complaint escalation? Today I will share script skill, hope this will help in our daily work.
The principle of script: firstly care about the user's emotions/feelings, and then deal with things.
Usually a good script that can appease customer consists with the following parts. (Note: The effect of the words is based on the sincere language and service attitude of the service staff.)

Example 1:

Customer went to SC for repair as the phone cannot turn on.
Reception: Hello, sir, the personal data saved in the phone may be lost during repair, to ensure the security of your personal data, you may need to go to the self-backup first.
User: Backup data? I don’t know how to do this. Isn't this what you should do? Why do I have to do this by myself? Why are you so irresponsible?
Faced with a series of questions from users, how can the reception effectively appease and guide users to backup data by their own?

Reference Script

Analysis

Sir, ①you are right, I agree with you that we should do data backup for you. Helping users is our unshrinkable duty. ②The data in the mobile phone involves your personal privacy, such as photos, videos, text messages, emails and even bank information. For your personal privacy considerations/related privacy protection laws, we have to recommend that you do your own data backup.③Sorry for the inconvenience caused. ④You may also worry that the backup data is difficult to operate. You can rest assured that we have detailed operation instructions and pictures, which is easy to follow especially for ⑤such brilliant customer like you. ⑥If you have any questions during the operation, you can always ask me or other staff, we are happy to provide services for you.

①Paraphrase ②Clarify user question/doubting ③Apologize for the situation ④Mark user emotions ⑤Encourage/praise ⑥Promise Establish emotion connection with customer: ①④ Clarify properly: ② Apologize: ③ Give solution/suggestion: ⑤⑥

 

Example 2:

The user went to the service center for repair. After inspection, the internal screen was judged broken and it was caused by external force. Thus customer need to pay for the repair. The user dispute: the mobile phone did not fall or squeeze, why the internal screen was broken? I am dissatisfied with the inspection result and want to talk to your manager, I hope you can repair it for free.
If you are the engineer or the reception, how do you explain it to the user?

Reference Script

Analysis

Hello sir, I can see that ①you must be much cherished when using the phone as it just looks new even after using for xx months. ②I fully believe that you will not fall or squeeze the screen of your mobile phone. ③The test results given by the engineers only explain the current situation that the internal screen of the mobile phone is indeed broken. This is a situation that ④we do not want to see but did happen. ⑤We are very sorry about this. ⑥We all understand that things that are as fragile as eggs are not crushed by themselves if there is no external force to squeeze them. The same is true for the screen of the mobile phone. Users as brilliant as you must also understand this. ⑦Maybe the phone was squeezed accidently in the pocket? ⑧In this situation, repair fee is indeed needed, hope you can understand.

①Empathy, thinking stand on user’s shoes that user would cherish their own phone; by saying this, will get closer to users. ②Paraphrase ③Clarify user’s question/doubting ④Mark user’s emotion ⑤Apologize for the situation ⑥Clarify user’s question/doubting ⑦Give user a step down ⑧Give solution/suggestion Establish emotion connection with customer: ①②④ Apologize: ⑤ Clarify properly: ③⑥⑦ Give solution/suggestion: ⑧

(The 2 scripts above are for reference only. In actual daily communication, it would be dialog but not such long terms)
 

Practice

Customer purchased the phone 18 months ago and sent the phone for repair due to cannot turn on. After inspection, the mainboard faulty was detected. Since the phone was out of warranty (one-year warranty), customer should pay for repair. Customer is not happy and said: I used XX brand phone for 3 years without any problem. Why the mainboard of your company phone broken just after warranty period expired? Why quality is so bad? I am not going to purchase your company phone anymore!
 
Imagine if you were the engineer or reception, please write a script by using the method above and note down which method was used.