031 - Turning Customer Feedback into E-commerce Success

031 - Turning Customer Feedback into E-commerce Success

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Welcome to this episode of Woman Powering E-commerce. Join me every Tuesday and Thursday as I take you behind the scenes of my journey as a female e-commerce entrepreneur. Together we'll explore the highest, the lows, inspired you to take action and achieve your own business goals. So let's get started. All right, so for today I really want to talk about handling customer complaints and feedback. Why? So we're all in the same boat. We just want what's best for our customers. We want what's best for a company and we work so hard behind the scenes to actually satisfy our customers. So when we get a negative feedback or just a complaint, of course we'll take it personally because we want to make sure it works and we work so hard already that we'll try and do our best to make sure that on the other end it really reflects what we're working on behind the scenes so.

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And I think we all push to get customer feedback to know what we're doing well because we need that. We need to know what we're doing well to know what we need to continue doing or even do more of. But we also really want to know what we can improve on and that's why customer feedback is not something that we should take personally in the negative way, but more in the sense that take it personally in the sense that we really want to fix these issues and upgrade the customer experience. And we all request that information through a phone call, in the form of email, survey, or reviews. And like I said, we really appreciate the positive feedback. It just allows us to give ourselves high-fives once in a while as a team. It's important, it's healthy, keeps us going.

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But what about the negative feedback? How do you deal with it? I felt like sharing this today because there are some things that are actually working well for us in the way that we use the negative feedback. So feel free to let me know if you have anything that's working well for you. I love when we can exchange and share our ideas and what works well for us. And I'll share with you my number one best tactic at the end. So what do we do with complaints? I'll just share with you what we do. That way if it can give you any ideas or maybe you can just add that to your list of things to improve your company. Great. So for complaints on the tech side of things, we use Slack and we've created a Slack channel that's dedicated to complaints. We feel that this has really helped us because that way we can really see the complaints come in and address those as quickly as possible and it's instant.

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And we also connected our IT guy to this channel so that usually he'll be the one that will address any issues, especially technical issues as soon as possible. When it comes to complaints in relation to products or service, this is how we do it. First of all, I have to say I have such a devoted customer service team to handle customer complaints or feedback. They do it A1. I only have praises and usually to be honest, when we get positive reviews back from our customers, I would say 50% or maybe 75% of the time, it's really in regards to the service that we provide. So I'm very confident about what we're providing service wise. And as for the product, I know our product is of very good quality and if there are any issues with the products, we're more than happy to really see what we can do more.

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So what are some of the product complaints we may get? If a product has issues at delivery. So if it's broken, leaked, those are all things that can happen that are, I would say almost out of our control. I mean we'll do our best to package the product in the best way possible. But then what happens between me and my customer, which is the carrier that's responsible for taking care of the package from point A to point B, well all kinds of things can happen. So we understand that. That we do not have control over, but we still make sure that we take full ownership of it. And so what we'll do if a product arrives leak, broken because our products are, a lot of them are in liquid form, we'll send a new one, no questions asked. And depending on the situation, maybe an additional compensation in the form of a discount maybe. But this is really case by case.

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I really, really trust my customer service team. I trust my girls. I give them a window of decision making they can make and I just trust their judgment to correct the situation. And to be honest, in the past when I was beginning, I think I really micromanaged every single return and I've realized with time no need to. Of course there's, I would say a probation period time where if you have a new staff member on board, you can just wait out and see what kind of person they are. You can test out their judgment skills and as soon as you feel they have a good sense of judgment, then you can just let them go. Of course we have a procedure in place to make sure that if I need to go back and see what we've authorized for returns and things like that, I can. Everything is documented.

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But as for the decision making, then I just let my girls do their job. And we also make sure to be in touch with our manufacturer if we feel something needs to be improved. I mean it's happened, we had a bad batch of product. I mean it's not the manufacturer's fault too. Sometimes they'll order a batch of sprays, we add sprays on our bottles and sometimes it's just not as a good quality as before. It happens and we deal with it if something like this shows up.

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Now social media. How do you feel when you get a negative comment on social media from a customer or someone that's not even a customer, how do you deal with it? I found that What's worked the best for us is just try and bring that comment or person to chat with you in private. So first of all, we of course try and make sure that the disappointed customer or person on social media understands that we heard them, that we acknowledge that they're disappointed or unsatisfied and encourage them to just contact us through email, phone, just to solve this issue out and fix it directly with us.

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We're not going to do it online on social media, especially not, I think that's pretty much basic etiquette when it comes to fixing an issue online. But that's still what we do and it works well. Now reviews, this is definitely my favorite, my number one favorite point. So we use this platform called Sitejabber. Sitejabber will collect reviews and redirect them to other platforms, other review platforms like Trustpilot, Judge.me and others. So here's something that's very important for you to know and this has really helped us. I would say it's more for us that we do it and we of course do it for the customers. You'll understand where I'm going with this. So we post all comments and all reviews. The reason for this is because it makes us accountable as a company and as a team. And because we value honesty and transparency. That is very important to us.

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It's part of our values. Integrity is definitely part of us. So we just do it that way. And also what's more frustrating than going on a website and all you see are a bunch of five star reviews. The first thing that kind of comes up in your head is red flag. I mean it's impossible. Right. So in that train of thoughts, that's just how we view it. So we post all comments unless, unless they are violent or very disrespectful, then we'll encourage the person that posted or wanted to give that review to review their words. And I mean it's a minimum to ask for some respect. So of course if it's disrespectful, we will not post them. But other than that, I mean negative or positive, whatever it is, we'll post it for all the reasons I just said.

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So and here's what I really like, this is what I was really excited to share. Platforms like Sitejabber will not automatically post reviews. They will give you a window frame of about three days before it will automatically be posted on any platform, but it still gives you a window of three days. So that lets say you have a negative comment come in, negative feedback, you have time, you can take that time to contact the customer and solve the issue, do some troubleshooting, ask them how you can make their experience better. And you can just get that feedback from them directly on the phone or by email, ideally on the phone. And hope to solve the issue within three days or even as soon as possible. Let's put it that way. As soon as possible, you want to solve the issue with the customer and just turn their negative experience to a positive one. And once you do that, we ask them would they like to modify the review and we just leave that to them.

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We of course will encourage them to do so just because to make sure it reflects their experience as of today, which is much better than three days ago, for example. And that way they can go, they can actually go and modify their review and that way that's the one that will be posted online. This has really helped us get much more positive reviews. Not that we were getting so many bad reviews, but a lot of the times when a customer is not satisfied, it's usually very, it's very easy to fix, it's maybe a communication problem, something they misunderstood. So once you get a chance to explain yourself, it really makes a world of difference.

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So as a summary, we are not perfect, but we strive to be the best possible and definitely appreciate our customer's feedback and complaints. And as for negative reviews, negative comments online, well maybe not on social media, but let's take the reviews for example. Well take those as constructive criticism. Take those as an opportunity to get in touch with your customer and actually speak with them, understand what's going on. See if you cannot make some improvements in your customer journey or see if there's some miscommunications that's on your part. I mean that's very possible. And just take that as a learning experience and see how you can make it right. And that way it just makes you more accountable and it just will make more happy customers down the road. So that's it for today. Take a moment to rate, share, and subscribe to this podcast if you liked it. And your support is definitely very crucial in helping reach and inspire more women entrepreneurs. Till next time.

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Thank you for being part of this journey with me. I hope you gained valuable insights and inspiration today to keep growing and taking action towards your goals. Please follow me on social media. Also follow us on your favorite podcast platform to get notifications every time a new episode is uploaded. See you next time.