Customer Disputes In Your Small Business
Posted On: 27/06/24 - 0

No matter how hard you try to keep your clients happy, there will be customer disputes in your small business. Here are 5 ways you can minimize the risk of dissatisfied customers.

Clear Communication In Your Business

Firstly, be transparent on your invoices, website and social media channels. If your customer wants to report an issue, an error, or otherwise, make it easy for them to be able to contact you. Include contact details, provide forms with a brief summary of what your policies are on handling issues. You may also want to consider including what the resolution process is. Often this will be on a case by case basis as there could be different issues rather than just the same one.

Timeline For Handling the Complaint

Secondly, by responding promptly to customer concerns, you will reassure your customer that help is on it’s way and you do care. Take time to reassure them that an investigation will start immediately. This will reduce their frustration and help them to know that the problem will be dealt with in a timely manner. Provide a timeline for expected resolutions and what the next steps are to resolving the problem.

Be Transparent In Handling the Issue

Thirdly, keep your customer informed throughout the process. Do not leave them hanging. By not keeping your client in the loop will only make them feel like you are ignoring them and have no intention of resolving the issue. This ultimately will negatively impact their trust in you and your business. Provide them with regular updates and outcomes as soon as they become available.

Document Incidents

Fourthly, learn from all complaints by recording disputes. This will help you to track the data and perhaps discover that there is a pattern in your business that needs to be addressed before it becomes a real problem.

Training Your Staff

Train your team based on those findings to help prevent future disputes. This ultimately will help to increase customer loyalty and build a strong rapport.

Online Disputes

Lastly, I will see on business reviews (when I am searching for a service or product myself) that past clients will write a negative review about their experience with your business. Customer disputes in your small business can be minimized or even eradicated if you have a strong process to address customer complaints in a timely manner.

If you have any questions on this, call our office. If you are also looking for a small business accountant, call 780-482-7297.



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