What should you do when your customers complain?
	An in-depth study conducted by a research team, uncovered some things: 1. On average, twenty-six unhappy customers won't complain for every one who will. 2. Yet each of these twenty-seven unhappy customers will tell an average of sixteen other people about his bad experience with your firm. 3. This means every complaint you hear represents 431 negative impressions. How many people should have to complain to you before you take action to permanently remedy a problem? By the time you hear a particular complaint three times, the problem has been mentioned to an average of 1,296 people. 4. It costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to keep an old one. 5. Ninety-one percent of your unhappy customers will never buy from you again. 6. But if you make a focused effort to remedy your customers' complaints, 82 percent of them will stay with you. What should you do when people complain? Above all, don't become defensive! You need to communicate with an attitude that says, 'I want to understand the problem so I can fix it and make you happy.' Here are three questions to ask that will bail you out every time: 1. 'What has happened?' Ask this question calmly and with genuine concern. 2. 'What should have happened?' You must clearly understand the customer's expectations before you can attempt to correct the problem. 3. 'What can I do to make it right?' This will calm even the angriest customer. Now go find an unhappy customer and turn his day around.