5 Steps on Dealing with Cake Complaints

Receiving a complaint is one of the most distressing things that can happen to a Cake Decorator. We work in a creative industry, we put all our creative energy in making the perfect cake for a customer. We've spent hours in the cake process including sleepless nights looking for cake designs, picking out colours, making the perfect sized fondant decorations, deciding on flavours, baking, mixing, decorating and covering the final product and then trying to deliver the cake in one piece. We’re hugely passionate about what we do.

So when we receive a complaint it feels like our world has ended. Regardless of how the feedback comes - over the phone, via email, in social media - you MUST deal with it. It's probably one of the hardest things to deal with in a cake business, so here are a few tips on how to deal with this.

Step 1:

Acknowledge the complaint When we receive a complaint, it’s our natural instinct to either defend ourselves or our product, that is argue back OR just, hide and pretend nothing happened maybe by offering a full refund and try to forget about it.

Here are a few ideas on to deal with such customers: • Thank them for their feedback, and be sincere about it. • Acknowledge their feelings, and be sincere about it. • If it's over the phone, do not interrupt them. Let them get out their entire complaint before you reply, and use that time to gather yourself. If it's online don’t reply immediately but do so timely.

You need to figure out what you should do before you can proceed. Be honest with yourself. Were you in a rush while you were making the cake or were you tired. It’s ok. Mistakes do happen. A Great reply is to say: “Thank you for your feedback. Please give me some time to respond in detail. I will consult my order records, and will get back to soon”.

Step 2:

Are they justified in complaining? Think hard about their complaint. Does it have ANY basis at all? Ask yourself these questions: Were you happy with the cake? Did you deliver what they ordered? What were they expecting? Could you have done better? Did you really forget to do something on the cake? Did you get the flavor, colour or size wrong? Does this client's complaint have ANY basis in fact, or are they just want to vent?

Honesty is the best policy. If you’ve made a mistake, then be big enough to admit it and apologise. Most often an apology is enough. It shows you have taken their complaint seriously. Tell them how you are going to make changes in future so that this problem doesn’t occur again.

Step 3:

If their complaint is justified and you are at fault. Decide how you're going to make this situation better for the both of you, and that's NOT always via a refund.

If you are at fault, you still want to make them come back to you and tell their friends about the amazing service they got but you still don’t want to lose money. Imagine yourself in their shoes. How would you want your complaint to be dealt with? Would you expect a refund? You might want to offer them a full refund, part refund, or free box of cupcakes as a form of apology (or a free cupcakes and a full refund if was a big mistake). What you offer depends on the severity of the complaint.

For example, if you got the flavour wrong but they still got a great cake? Offer them a discount on their next order. You forgot to write Happy Birthday on it or you spelt a name wrong? Apologise politely but don't offer any refund. Frankly not writing Happy Birthday on a birthday cake will have no real impact on their event, but they deserve a sincere apology at the least because you didn't meet their expectations. You got the colour wrong which was a mismatch to their colour theme? Offer a partial refund.

If the entire cake collapsed in a pile on the floor because you failed to secure it properly and so they had no cake at their wedding or birthday party? In that case, you have to refund the entire amount, send some cupcakes AND offer a discount on a future order. You've got to make them happy, but don’t reward them too much as that's an admission of guilt and sets up the tone for future orders from them.

If they’ve complained on your Social Media platform, be friendly and polite in your response, but take any further conversation offline.

Step 4:

If their complaint has NO basis in fact and there is NO way you are at fault

At some point you’re going to come across a very unreasonable customer.

In this case say as little as possible. The less you apologise, defend yourself, express your embarrassment, tell them you feel bad. Don’t feed into their emotions. You want to avoid making this a big deal. Ask yourself, are you happy investing the time and effort in dealing with this customer? Are you okay with defending your cake for what might take you 20 mins, or 30 mins, or an hour?

DO NOT offer recompense of any kind. If you are not at fault, there is no reason for them to get compensated, and you may not want them as a client if they are the type of person who complains about things you have no control over.

Tell them what you are going to do about this situation should it ever arise again, and tell them you're grateful for their feedback.

In most cases, don't let the conversation drag on. Come to a decision as quickly as possible and then act on it if you said you would. Keep it short and keep it about business - no matter how many tears you might have shed over it. Be sincere, be authentic and above all, be professional about it.

Step 5:

Mark it down to experience and learn your lesson.

Negative feedback is horrible because you are afraid other people may know about it. Whichever way you decide to deal with this , above all - you MUST:

Thank them for their feedback, and be sincere about it. ALL feedback is useful feedback.

Acknowledge their feelings, and be sincere about it. They want to feel appreciated, even when they are annoyed. After you have cooled down, reflect and see what lessons you have learnt in order to improve in your cake business, for example, do you need to change your cake Terms and Conditions? Your cake order form? Show pictures of what the finished cake will look like? Avoid unreasonable customers? Try and manage client’s expectations better?

Haters are gonna hate. Let them. Just learn how to deal with them and it won't bother you quite as much. Whatever the outcome, making mistakes along the way is not an issue. Not learning from those mistakes IS!

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Happy Caking.

Regards,

RotimiCakeLady