In the light of a number of different people trying to extort money from fish and chip shops over the last few months by making fraudulent complaints we thought it may be a good idea to help operators tighten up on their complaints procedures.
Customer service is extremely important in the modern trading environment and an issue handled badly can do a lot of damage, not only costing you that customer but potentially many others. That being said you also need to protect your business from serial complainers and fraudsters.
The NFFF have put together a brief guide and also a Customer Service Record sheet for you to download and print. By filling out the sheet you have a record of the complaint and the customer to check at a later date. It looks professional, buying you time to investigate properly, and it also will weed out time wasters.
You can find a button to take you to the sheet at the bottom of this page.
- Listen to the Customer they probably just want to get it off their chest
- Be polite, understanding, professional an certainly do not argue back
- Don’t get in the customers space or face
- Document the complaint and the customers details
- Do not presume the customer is in the wrong
- Don’t try to blame others
- Think of what you can change for the future
- Apologise and do what you can to pacify the customer, try to avoid giving cash, you are better to give twice as much in vouchers than cash.
- Inform other staff and find ways to learn from mistakes
- Review customer service records regularly
If you suspect fraud then please contact the NFFF as we can see if there are any patterns.
There are other useful documents for NFFF Members available from our lighthouse business protection portal and in the NFFF Website in the Members Area
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NFFF AND HOW TO JOIN