I will be the first to admit,
I can be a grumpy bear consumer! It would seem in this era of technology and
easy access to information systems that internal offices of an organization can
speak to each other to resolve customer issues. The answer to that is nope! Or
that if you offer an email customer support option, that someone would actually
respond to that inquiry? Not surprisingly, the answer is not so much! The
problem is that something that once was a small problem now escalates to a
bigger problem to some poor person you can finally get on the phone that had
nothing to do with creating a problem in the first place! I recently received a
general inquiry on the business networking site, Alignable, where a business
owner was asking about how they could recover from a bad customer experience
and review. This got me thinking out loud that instead of being grumpy, change
the paradigm and use such an instance to help your enterprise thrive!
I get it. You try to do a good
job and you still receive a customer, client, etc. complaint. It may be unfair,
but you still need to have some sort of response. As a Performance Coach, I would suggest that when
such issues occur, triage the interaction with this tough customer experience
in three areas of inquiry that I will explore further below:
WHAT
Happened?
First
and foremost, instead of just assuming the customer or client was wrong, find
out in detail what happened.
- What are they specifically unhappy about?
- Was the issue with the entire product or service or just part of it? If part, which part?
- When in the “purchase to delivery” process did they become dissatisfied?
- When and how did the customer attempt to reconcile the issue?
- What was our response when they did so?
- Why was that insufficient?
WHY Did This Happen?
Once you have detailed information
from the customer (and yes, you should personally call them!) and the team
members who were involved, deconstruct the issue to find out why the
issue occurred in the first place.
- Did we negotiate expectations on front end in terms of time, scope of work, functions of the product, conditions of the service, etc.?
- Did we check in with customer often throughout the entire purchase to delivery process to see if they were happy with their choice to purchase from us and the eventual product or service they received, or did we just move on to the next potential purchase?
- Did we respond immediately when a complaint was forwarded?
- If so, what did we do?
- If not, why not?
- Did we verify the product was in good working order and complete before we delivered?
- Did we make sure the service provided met the client’s expectations shortly after they received it?
- Did we record their response?
- Is there an issue with the quality of our product whether we created it or received from a vendor?
- Does our level of service exceed expectations of both the client and the marketplace?
- Did we over promise and under deliver?
What
Do We Do DIFFERENT as a Response?
Once you answer the above, as
a leader, you know have the powerful opportunity to use a negative experience
and turn it into a positive one. Just like when the Dominos Pizza CEO used
costly commercial time to admit their product quality had diminished, telling
the story of how you responded can be incredibly instructive and motivating to
your team and influential to your potential market!
- What processes or procedures prevented outstanding service or product quality?
- Are team members empowered and trained to replace or resolve issues versus put clients on the “check with my boss” merry-go-round?
- Are the right people doing the wrong job?
- What has become endemic in our systems and procedures that create customer dissatisfaction and what do we need to change as a result?
- If our enterprise has become so cumbersome that it prevents us from resolving customer and client issues in a nimble and highly personalized manner how can we can we and where do we need to alter it?
- How will we change how we deal with customer issues the next time it happens?
- Has the quality of our products and/or services declined to the point where we no longer competitive in the consumer social media court of opinion?
- If so, why are we still in business?
Now I bet most of your customer
and client interactions are usually pretty good. The issue becomes, as author
and speaker Paul Martinelli shares, when we “get careless or simply could care
less!” All of this comes down to the leadership you are providing to your team
and enterprise in terms of the culture you have created. In earlier
blogs, I have shared the path to excellence lies in two things: Getting it Right
in the first place and Making it Right when you don’t! Sure, tough or demanding
customers are not the most fun part of your enterprise, but they can offer an
excellent barometer in terms of when quality has slipped or service has become
lacking. Further, they can help identify blind spots in your enterprise that
you may not have known existed or emerged. If you did not get it right on the front
end, then making it right is an excellent strategy (if not the only one) to
retain a customer but also have them become a brand ambassador. I am often more
impressed by the sincere apology and over-the-top response when things go wrong
than the initial purchasing process! Your clients will be too.
The path to excellence lies in two things: Getting it Right in the first place and Making it Right when you don’t!
Leadership
expert and author, John C. Maxwell, shared during a presentation to the United
Nations that followers ask three questions:
- Do you care for me?
- Can you help me?
- Can I trust you?
It is his belief that if you
can answer those three questions in the affirmative, then you are a leader of
value. I completely agree and would even go as far to say that if you can
answer those same three questions (whether verbally asked or not) in the affirmative
to your customers and clients, then not only do you deserve to stay in
business, you have earned the right to have it grow and thrive!
As always if I can help you and
the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would
invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the
training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact, especially when
it comes to creating organizational values that stick! I am also pleased to
announce the launch of my first book, Leading Out Loud: Strategies for Raising
Your Leadership Voice! available on Amazon.com. Also, as a bonus, if
you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and
enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a
mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be
critical to add value to your organization!
Yours in Leadership,
Bill Faulkner
Principal Consultant – Out
Loud Strategies
Independent Coach, Speaker,
and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team TM
Email
= bill@outloudinc.com
For more information on the
John Maxwell Team, please visit
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