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As I was mining data for sales leads last night, I came across a company's corporate site that allowed visitor comments. Oddly, the comments weren't moderated or addressed. My guess is someone thought visitors would write their name, state, time they visited the company and mention what a great time they had; people didn't do that.
The comments were a very long list of grievances, complaints and unanswered customer service questions that seemed even harder to read knowing that no one would ever likely answer them.
Let's step back in time to 1995 and date myself a little.
I was working on the sales floor of an office supply and furniture store in the furniture department. I didn't dream of a career selling office furniture, I simply needed a job while I went to college.
When I first started I was clueless. I didn't know a Hon from a Sauder Oak, but I learned. I sat in everything, I opened doors, I touched, tested and sold. In very little time I wasn't just a salesman, I was helpful. If you had a question, I had an answer- an honest one. If we didn't have something but I knew of a competitor down the street who did, I'd let you know because that's what I'd want if I were the customer. Customers want humans, not opportunists trying to pick their pockets. Humans build relationships through trust, and as people trusted me they always came back.
I'd like to say I worked at IKEA because I love IKEA, but nope. I mention them because we sold plenty of IKEA-like disassembled furniture and if you've ever opened a book case from IKEA, you know there could be trouble: missing screws, missing boards, the wrong parts... you never know; and so was the case with our furniture from time to time.
Of course, for the buyer this is a headache. They expect what we told them they were getting for their money. On our end, nothing was perfect, nor would it be. (FYI-Very few people or companies are perfect. When I find one, I'll let you know.)
So, here's a pop quiz: what do you do?
When a customer comes storming in, ready to tear your head off because their experience was far from perfect, what action do you take?
Here's what you don't do:
Always makes me laugh because the army doesn't number their grenades; they number the boxes grenades come in.
Another thing you don't do is let every angry customer get in a room and complain until the end of time without any corporate response (ahem... unnamed example from earlier- hope you're reading this).
Here's one of the more (sadly) humorous customer complaint resolution methods I witnessed.
A coworker loaded this beautiful mahogany desk table-side down on a pallet truck and scratched the top to no end.
Mahogany desk tops don't like to sit directly on these. Actually, nothing that doesn't like to be scratched does.
The customer freaked out and said she wanted a discount for the scratches he put on it.
His reply: 'It was like that.'
I was the supervisor. I saw the whole thing. I knew that desk since the day it arrived on the floor. It wasn't like that.
I wanted to laugh, but instead I did what I always did: I took the customer's side, calmly and openly discussing the truth in front of the customer and the coworker.
I clearly acknowledged that my coworker did scratch the desk and was simply afraid to admit his mistake. I also told her the sad news that there wasn't anything we could do to change what he'd done (there were no more desks like it, as it was a floor model), but we could offer a huge discount on the already discounted desk if she still wanted it. Of course, I did apologize for the entire incident. The customer bought the scratched desk at a greatly reduced rate and actually left very happy.
It wasn't the first time I apologized to a customer. In fact, I became so good at defusing angry customers that the store manager sent them to me every time.
You bought a box of 1000 staples that only had 999? Send them to me.
Our delivery guy ran over your beloved poodle? Send them to me.
We showed up late and accidentally knocked out all the power on the Eastern seaboard when we plugged in our faulty desk lamp? Send them to me.
And people came in an-gry.
But it wasn't hard. All I had to do was put myself in their shoes, apologize for what our company had done and do whatever I could offer to make it better.
There's this wonderful line from the movie Grand Budapest Hotel I absolutely love (both the move and the line) regarding angry customers.
Rudeness is merely an expression of fear. People fear they won't get what they want. The most dreadful and unattractive person only needs to be loved, and they will open up like a flower.
I believe that line to be completely true, but there's a very important handful of words within it we have to consider: 'won't get what they want'.
Perhaps that's what causes the disconnect between complaint resolution and businesses. Oftentimes, a business will hear a complaint that seems absurd, e.g.: 'It was raining and the rides at your theme park were closed- I want a refund!'
Never mind that most people don't want to ride in the rain or that rainy rides may be completely unsafe, and never mind that theme parks can't control weather.
But what do we promise our customers? Who or what makes them feel so... entitled?
I'm sorry to say, it's your marketing and sales team. When you show potential customers a happy family on a cruise ship hugging a dolphin, a kid rocking out to your latest mp3 software or a man enjoying a five star dining experience at a hamburger fast food restaurant, you've created an expectation and built an entitlement.
Returning to my own experience, I couldn't give away the store but it wasn't hard to give a discount or an occasional freebie. Most of the time a sincere apology (and I truly mean honest and sincere- like you took our your parents' car without permission and wrecked it) and recognition of our mistake was enough.
Very few people in the world truly expect perfection, but they do expect people to recognize the pain and hurt they cause them when they do make mistakes. We have to remember that we rarely know the depth of pain we cause customers when we mess up; The most we can ever know is that we caused a mistake. I think it's fair to assume that we, the company, gave the customer the worst experience ever and work forward from there because, believe me, if they're complaining, you probably did- and if having customers matters, you really need to make up for it.
Alright, last example from my fireside chat and you can go back to your office party.
This is not the company I was discussing earlier; In fact, it's a great company that really goes out of their way to do great things in general, but even a big company can make mistakes.
A family of four goes to Disney and the rides are closed due to weather. They complain about it to the company. What should Disney do? Disney doesn't control the weather, right? I mean, what right do they have to complain when weather just kind of happens?
Now look at it from the family's side.
The family lives in Alaska and make enough to do alright but never enough for anything expensive. In fact, they've never been outside the state other than the time the wife was deployed in Afghanistan on active military duty.
When she returned, they thought they'd celebrate by doing something different than normal: they booked a trip to Orlando to take the kids to Disney World. The parents were well aware they would only get to do one of these big trips for the kids, ever because flying from Fairbanks to Orlando, getting a room for the week and taking time off of work are always nearly impossible to coordinate.
They tell all their friends and family who are excited for a family that really needs a break/ Those friends and family members have considered taking trips to Disney too but want first hand feedback from their friends to know if it's worth it before they shell out a lot of money.
When the family arrives in Florida, they are excited. They can't wait to experience what the family in the brochure did. It's raining but the family's used to bad weather, since they live in Alaska. They figure the park is used to it also.
When they get to the gates, they find the park open but every ride is closed. This continues for the entire week. One could suggest they go to another theme park but they bought one week passes Disney which aren't cheap. They've spent their entire budget.
When they return they send a brief and simple complaint to Disney telling them they visited, it rained and they couldn't ride anything. They were disappointed.
Anyone reading the brief complaint might think they were crazy. They might even say to themselves, 'Of course you couldn't ride anything- Disney doesn't let riders on when it's soaking wet.'
As I said before, this is hypothetical, but it's a perfect instance where a company can say 'well, that's the breaks' or they can have some empathy and understanding. We don't know the full pain of someone voicing a complaint, we often don't know the whole story, but if they're complaining... well, look at it this way:
it's a human in front of you who loved everything about your company. They love your style, your personality, and what you do. They want to give you business for as long as they live and you just fell short, or ruined their week, or ran over their cat, or made them wait all week long when they really wanted to take a vacation that week or who knows.
You have to empathize. You have to understand. You have to admit you fell short of their expectations. It's not kissing tail, it's being human. It costs nothing, but it means the world to someone who trusted your company to deliver.
We live and die by our customers. Relationships are valuable. Never forget what you promise them and when you fall short, take responsibility and do what you can to be a good human.
-Chris
www.delacroixleather.com
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