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Customer Service vocabulary · Refunds, Returns & Compensation

Compensation

Meaning in customer service, with examples

/ˌkɒmpenˈseɪʃən/nounCommon term

In customer service, compensation means: Money, a discount or another benefit given to a customer to make up for a problem, a loss or poor service.

In Turkish: telafi, tazmin, tazminat

How it is used

Customers ask for or claim compensation; companies offer it. In everyday service work it is often small, such as a credit on the account or a free month. In legal contexts compensation can mean money ordered by a court, so companies choose the word carefully in writing.

Example sentences

  1. As compensation for the outage, we've added a £10 credit to your account.

  2. The customer is asking for compensation for the missed appointment.

Common collocations

  • offer compensation
  • claim compensation
  • as compensation for
  • compensation request
  • goodwill gestureSomething a company gives a customer, such as a discount or a small refund, to show that it cares, even when it does not have to.
  • voucherA paper or digital code that can be used instead of money or to get a discount on a product or service.
  • store creditAn amount of money that a shop gives a customer to spend on future purchases there, instead of paying cash back to their card.
  • complaintA statement that someone is unhappy or not satisfied with a product, a service or the way they were treated.
  • refundMoney that is paid back to a customer, for example because they returned a product, cancelled a service or were charged by mistake.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Refunds, Returns & Compensation

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