I agree. If you’re not born with a positive mindset, training should do the trick.

Training frontliners on objectivity and positivity is a must-have for businesses, no matter the size. When sales and customer service people manage to view unfavorable events with a hint of positivity, we realize how each complaint and each frustrated customer might serve as an opportunity to become better at what we do.

So true Brooke! You make a lot of great points. One thing you mention that I see often when training frontline reps is them being able to depersonalize and see complaints as opportunities (or “gifts”). It is not human nature to do so and is something that really has to be trained.

We actually wrote about complaints as gifts a few years ago: http://customersthatstick.com/blog/customer-loyalty/what-are-customer-complaints-theyre-gifts/

Customer recovery IS a serious matter and businesses should devise the best way to deal with each customer who airs their frustrations across different channels and expects to get a resolution.

It’s very important that your team knows how to listen and identify visual or verbal queues shown by a customer. Also, it pays to be objective and focus on how to resolve the problem rather than to take the customer’s frustration personally. Complaints are not entirely bad for your business, it’s the perfect opportunity to reevaluate your product or services, identify areas of improvement, and decide to do better.