Case 1

Due to screen crack, customer sent the phone to SC for repair on 3/30, after learned that the fee of repairing screen was very close to the phone itself, customer canceled repair. Then called hotline number to complain about high repair fee. Customer mentioned that the price of screen from Lazada or other third-party is much cheaper than SC. 4/2 complaint handling specialist called back the customer to explain the warranty policy: The repair fee is the screen fee itself, we don’t charge for maintenance, and the SC screen is the original screen from the factory. The quality is guaranteed and the original warranty service will not be affected after the screen change. Customer didn’t accept and want to talk to manager. Later manager assistant called back the customer and provided 20% discount, customer didn’t accept and requested repair for free. After internal discussion, the final offer to customer is 30% discount, customer accepted but still not satisfied with the solution because customer thought the repair should be free of charge.
When customer is questioning that the screen from third-party is cheaper than SC, specialist‘s explanation is good. Responding to customer complaining about high price of spare parts needs to follow the two principles:
1. Explain to customer that all the spare parts in SC are ordered from factory, quality is guaranteed and the original warranty service won’t be affected by replacing spare parts.
2. Don't comment on competitors or third-party shop, such script should be avoided “spare part from other channels are not genuine, the quality is not good, so it's cheap.”

Question: In this case, we gave the customer the biggest discount, but why is the customer still not satisfied?
Generally speaking, the dissatisfied reason is the difference existed between customer expectation and actual response get from us. In this case, customer expectation is free maintenance, while only get 30% discount, thus customer is dissatisfied. For such case, we should evaluate at the very beginning if we can provide free maintenance to this customer. If no, we should refuse euphemistically; but if such customer is not too much, we can repair for free in order to improve service satisfaction, local team can judge according to the real situation.

Case 2

Customer purchased the phone on 2019/3/3. Due to screen crack, customer sent the phone for repair on 3/23 and got the phone repaired in warranty. On 4/27, customer found that the back cover of the phone has crack just after he removed the back-cover protector. So customer went to SC again to repair back cover. After assessment, customer was informed that the crack was caused by human-force and need to pay for repair. Customer didn’t accept and complained that the engineer haven’t inspected the device carefully at the first time. Engineer explained that he cannot remove the back-cover protector without customer authorization thus he didn’t inspect back cover.
Customer requested 50% repair fee discount, engineer informed customer he can only provide 10% discount, customer didn’t accept. Later, the SC manager provided 15% discount and customer still didn’t accept and left SC. Later, customer called hotline number to complain and requested 50% discount. 4/30, complaint handling specialist called the customer back to provide 20% discount and told customer this is already the highest discount. Customer said he has already sold out the phone, no repair needed. On 5/6, RV agent called back this customer to do CSAT survey, customer is dissatisfied with both the solution provided and the handling duration as different staffs can give him different discounts and extra 5% discount each time, which makes customer feeling the service standard is poor.

In this case, local team compromised 3 times on discount with the goal of customer satisfaction. The starting point is good, however, this lead customer feels that our internal process is confusing, the discount can be given freely, and the service standard is poor. When customer is requesting repair fee discount, we can provide certain discount in some situation to improve customer satisfaction. Please be noted our principle and bottom-line.
1. Principle: only compromise one time on discount (can escalate, but discount keeps the same); for extremely special case, can compromise 2 times.
2. Bottom-line: how much discount can be provided, local team can decide this according to local situation.
For the this case, if engineer, SC manager and specialist gave customer the same discount (that’s say it 10%), may let customer know that 10% is our bottom-line and the back-cover maintenance indeed deserve it.

Summary

In the above two cases, if customer requests free maintenance, local team judge according to the actual situation whether can provide free maintenance. If yes, then provide free maintenance; if no, then euphemistically refuse and give a certain maintenance discount to appease the customer. When giving discounts, please mind our principles and bottom-line and avoid repeated compromise.