Customer Complaints:
How To Write an Effective
Response
Why respond to customer
complaints
A well-composed customer complaint response can:
• lead to higher customer retention
• reinforce a positive image for your brand
• reduce poor word-of-mouth about your service or product
• increase positive word-of-mouth about your customer
service
How to respond to customer
complaints
1. Read the entire complaint
• Before you compose your response, read the entire complaint
carefully.
• Make sure you understand the circumstances of the incident in
question and then restate those circumstances in your response as a
way of validating the customer’s frustration.
2. Apologize for any inconvenience
• Begin your response with an apology.
• If there has been a misunderstanding and the company has not made
an error, you can still apologize for any inconvenience or confusion
that has arisen.
3. Explain what may have caused the issue
• Customers may feel more satisfied if they understand why the
situation resulted in an inconvenience for them.
• In as much detail as possible, consider explaining the process behind
why the customer encountered this inconvenience.
4. Propose an actionable, detailed solution
• One of the most important aspects of a customer complaint response
letter is the action that the company offers to take as compensation
to the customer.
• This can include many things, such as:
oAn offer to replace a missing product
oA rescheduling of the service
oA refund of the product or service
5. Explain how you can improve the customer's
experience in the future
• After ensuring that your company will resolve the situation, the next
immediate step would be to detail how your company plans to
improve the customer's experience in the future.
• The more details you can provide regarding the future of an improved
customer experience, the more meaningful your response will feel.
6. Offer an incentive
• If possible, offer an incentive to your customer in your response
letter.
• This can be anything from a discount for a product subscription to an
upgrade to a better version of a product.
7. Encourage customer response
• To conclude your letter, encourage the customer to respond with any
further questions or concerns they may have about your product or
service.
• Being open to communication lets your customer know that you are
genuinely invested in retaining them as a customer.
8. Reply to any follow-up letters or questions
• Reply to any further letters your customer sends.
• Replying quickly and genuinely shows your customers that your
company appreciates them.
Tips for responding to customer
complaints
When writing your customer complaint response letter, consider the
following tips:
• Address the customer by name:
→Make sure to include your customer’s name and double-check that
you have spelled it correctly.
→By avoiding a generic greeting and directly addressing your customer,
you will appear more sensitive and personable.
• Consider the customer's point of view:
→How would you feel if similar circumstances had happened to you?
→How would you like a company to respond to your complaint?
→Keeping the customer’s point of view in mind can help you compose
an empathetic response.
• Respond as promptly as possible:
→A quick response signals to the customer that you take their opinions
and their loyalty seriously.
→Take enough time to thoroughly understand the complaint but
answer as promptly as you can.
• https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-
development/customer-complaint-response
