Improve client communication: 5 Tips for Handling Complaints

We all want to avoid getting complaints, and I know one surefire way to make that happen in your home inspection business. Stop doing business. Simple, right? We can either close up shop or try to better prepare for the inevitable dissatisfied client.

This is a delicate dance, as too much time invested in a complaint can force us to take our eye off the ball, while too little time can give the outward appearance that we don’t care. On either side of the fence, poorly handled complaints have a cost.

Before we dive into resolving or handling complaints, let’s look at how we can limit them in the first place. Can we start as soon as the phone rings? Perhaps we could audit our sales process and how we educate our potential clients on the front end. My experience tells me we spend more time selling our service than explaining the process, which can sometimes get our expectations out of sync with our delivery and lead to disappointment in the overall experience. This can lead to receiving complaints after the inspection.

I’ve found that when we’re hungry for business, we spend a lot more time convincing our potential clients of what our product will do for them and less time explaining the limitations of the exercise. A great inspection is the one that finds all of the bad stuff, right? Or is it?

Here are five useful tips that might be helpful the next time you receive a complaint.

1. Speed is key.

In my experience, speed is of the utmost importance when handling a complaint. Someone would much rather get a quick response with an “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” than they would let this sit for a couple of days while you research the issue.

Once we understand the situation, we want to set timing expectations. “Our office manager will be in touch with you by 3pm on Wednesday. Does that work OK for you?”This is a great way to buy some time with the client and let them know who will be in touch with them and when they should expect the communication. Try to beat the timeline.

Be specific here. If you tell someone that the office manager will call today or tomorrow, consider how that may sound. The client may think the call is coming today, while the office manager may think tomorrow.

2. Empathy can win the battle.

When handling complaints, it’s important to remember the resolution does not come from you being right. If you’re going to use the ASHI Standards to defend your position, then it’s very important that you use those standards up-front, explaining in detail how you’re going to conduct the inspection. In my experience, many home inspectors simply link to the standards in their contracts or authorization forms. I’m not saying you can’t do that, but at the same time, do you read all the ins and outs of the paperwork when you rent a car? I doubt it. Let’s give some grace here on what our clients got, what they expected, and what we know we should deliver.

I’ll suggest we handle these complaints subjectively. Each one is different, and each client has different expectations. Discovering what they want is helpful, so be a good listener. Ask meaningful questions. Treat each conversation like you’re the reporter and need to be able to print this story later. Take good notes.

3. Choose a guarantee or warranty.

If you don’t do well with conflict, a third party warranty program might be a good solution. Our experience with a third party warranty company was not favorable, and we’ve talked to others who rave about the idea—there’s no one answer. There is also the consideration of selling a client’s data, which some folks would not be partial to, and we’ll suggest doing your own research on the topic.

We decided to include our own guarantee as part of the home inspection process. In most instances, we learned we’ll end up paying something out anyway, so I believe I may as well try to get some marketing dollars out of it on the front end and hope we make an impression in how we resolve complaints on the back end to win future business.

Third party warranties can be favorable, and it may be worth relinquishing control of the situation in some instances. As mentioned above, this may be good for someone who’s averse to conflict. This could also be a good solution for the single operator who is already fully booked and simply doesn’t have the time to give the complaints the attention they deserve. If a few referral sources are lost here and there, it would not make much of an impact. And complaints are probably few and far between anyway.

4. Assess the complaint.

The actual complaint may start with something like this: “We have our contractor here, and they found (insert issue here). He says it’s going to cost another $5,000, and our inspector should have told us about it.” My first recommendation is to see a copy of the estimate from the contractor. Start with the basics. Why wasn’t it on their estimate? Get all the information you can about the issue, the history, how it was discovered, why they called you, what the remedy may be, and what they expect you to do.

Let’s get past the nuances of different companies and how this process would unfold and operate as though the person taking the call is the person who can begin the resolution process. The most important thing here is to take notes. Take notes on what they say, and consider that everything is important. Take notes on the questions you ask as well, and be precise. This will come up again. Have empathy. Let them know you care. And if you don’t, be a great actor.

5. Think investment, not payment.

In speaking with home inspection companies across the US and in Canada, the average payout on complaints is usually around the neighborhood of 2% of gross revenue. Some are a little more, and some are a little less. I try to view this as a small investment in marketing and PR as opposed to money to pay a complaint. Although every situation is different, this is an investment in securing future business, an investment in error prevention, and investment in your employees’ confidence in your business.

As for investment in future business, I know from firsthand experience over the years that a little goodwill goes a long way. I don’t want to give the impression that I believe we should give away the farm because we want agents to refer our company in the future, but I’m painfully aware that turning a bad situation into a redeeming one carries a lot of weight when a professional real estate agent believes his/her reputation could be on the line. When clients believe we did the right thing, they’re much more likely to pass our name along to friends and family than they would be otherwise.

The second point is investing in error prevention. This is a small price to pay for a real-life, active feedback loop. Think about it. We can take every complaint we get and dissect every aspect of that complaint from the time the phone rang to make this part of our process improvement. If we get four calls in a week that are complaints about refrigerator ice makers, and we know we do not check those, we have an active feedback loop to help improve our process.

We have several options we can choose from to determine how we improve that piece of the process. Do we want to spend more effort on a bigger notice that we don’t check them? Do we want to incorporate checking them into our routine? Do we want to set aside more money for our annual budget paying claims on ice makers? That’s hardly an exciting issue to discuss, but you get the point.

Lastly, everyone is watching when something goes wrong. The people watching the closest are the biggest stakeholders—the ones answering the phones, the ones marketing the service, the ones who handle the complaints when they come in. Them knowing you’re always going to do the right thing is paramount. So do the right thing.

In Conclusion

Claims can be paralyzing to us as business owners. Often, though, we feel like we’re the only ones who carry the burden when they come in. Try to remember that it is a cascading effect, and they affect almost everyone involved negatively. Getting these off our plates as quickly as possible is helpful to all. Obviously we want to do that while limiting our financial outlay, but there may be a bigger cost than the dollar amount—the cost of confidence in our office.

Try to see through the eyes of the client. Could we have done better? Think about the issue from every perspective. We don’t need to put a client in a position of betterment; we just need to make a situation right. For example, if we told them the roof was 13 years old and would last 15 to 20 years in our report, then we later find out the roof needs to be replaced, should we bear that entire cost burden? Remember that it’s OK to negotiate. What’s good for the company, good for the client, good for the agent(s) and all parties involved?

May the odds be ever in your favor.