How to Stop Customer Complaints Before They Happen

No one wants to hear bad news. Especially if it’s a customer complaint.

But what if you could stop customer complaints before they happen? No, we’re not suggesting you break out the Ouija board and crystal ball just yet. All it actually takes is a little empathy and foresight.

We’ve put together a collection of the most common sources of customer complaints (and how to fix them) to help you create a better shopping experience for your customers before they have the chance to get frustrated.

As a bonus, we’ve also included three email templates that you can use to handle complaints if things do end up going sideways.

Complaints can be a useful tool for discovering where your business needs to improve, but it’s much better to be able to get that insight without upsetting a customer at the same time.

Let’s get into it.

Why Do Customers Complain?

Customers complain when they feel frustrated.

That doesn’t mean that customers only complain when they can’t do something. Frustration happens any time the results of an action don’t match the expectation—when you do something and it doesn’t turn out how you thought it would.

These frustrating moments can occur at any point in your customer’s shopping experience. For instance, maybe their order never arrives or your product pages are a complete mess. Potentially frustrating scenarios are everywhere.

You need to anticipate and eliminate these opportunities for frustration, so that your customers can discover, purchase, and enjoy your products without hitting any roadblocks (and without sending you a complaint about their less-than-stellar experience).

The Most Common Sources of Frustration for Customers

While complaints can take many forms, there are a few key things that can leave customers dissatisfied if they aren’t handled properly. If you can master these critical issues, your business will start getting less complaints and more happy customers instead.

Keeping your customers happy is all about managing expectations. Most customer complaints are caused by a disconnect between expectation and reality, so you need be able to more accurately align your customers’ expectations with likely outcomes.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common causes of complaints and how your business can get on top of them before they turn your customers away.

Shipping and Inventory Issues

“Where’s my order?”

If you’ve gotten that question before, then you definitely understand the importance of being able to deliver your products safely and on time.

Your customers put a lot of trust in you to get them their orders and if they feel uncertain about when their package is going to show up (or if it’s going to show up at all), the complaints will start rolling in.

To keep your customers in the loop, offer order tracking whenever possible. If your customers can keep an eye on the progress of their order in real time, they’ll have a more clear understanding of when their order should arrive and you’ll be able to reduce the potential for complaints based on shipping delays or uncertainty.

For Shopify store owners, giving customers the option to track their order is as easy as dropping in the tracking number when fulfilling an order or adding an Order Status page to your store.