Yes, you just can’t make everybody happy all the time. I mean, sometimes you’re going to make a mistake, there’s going to be a concern, or something is going to come up. So what is the best way to deal with mistakes?
A lot of times, I watch customer service reps or managers always try to justify what happened. The fact is that, sometimes, there is no justifying it, and there is no rationalization that can happen there.
You just need to listen. What is the underlying concern that is going on? What happened that let the customer down? What is it that broke the walls of WOW service?
Once you can really understand, then you can make an agreement. You can come to some kind of terms with that customer to make them really happy. Get them back in the WOW status.
Now, when you’re dealing with these concerns and you listen, one of the best things is to ask this simple question: “What would you like to see happen?”
A lot of times, the answer that they give is not even what you were setting yourself up for. Sometimes it’s just, “Come back and make it right.”
Sometimes, it is a refund. But here is something that I will tell you about refunds. The refund is very small normally compared to doing the right thing. And a lot of times, it is our fault. We made a mistake.
Here’s a story I have to tell you about something that happened a long time ago:
The customer was unhappy. We dealt with it. They went on social media, because that’s the easy thing to do. You just take your iPhone and say, “Hey, this company sucks”.
Even after I made them happy and said, “Are you completely satisfied?” and they said yes, guess what they did? They went on and posted stuff on the internet. I thought, “That was really weird.” So I just called them up and said, “I thought you were satisfied.” They said, “We were happy. We just thought everybody should know.” I said, “But you didn’t tell them the whole story. You just told them a piece about it.”
This little story I told you was for a reason: for you to take action and do something that could help you out.
Here’s some steps:
1. Listen. Listen to really what happened, and ask yourself, “Was it WOW service?” Did you make a mistake?
2. Ask. “What’s it going to take to keep doing business together in the future and make things better, to fix this relationship?”
3. Come to terms and make sure that, whatever the terms are, you commit and get them done.
4. Over-deliver on it. If you say you’re going to refund them $100, refund $125 and send a fruit basket or flowers.
5. Make sure, before you ever give a refund or ever give anything back, that you have a simple paper for them to sign that says, “I’m not going to go on social media. I’m satisfied.” This creates, not only clarity for everybody and alignment between you and the customer that might have had a problem, but also accountability for what everyone is going to do. You just say, “I’m going to send you this simple form”. The form pretty much says, “Hey, you’re happy. You’re satisfied. You’re back to WOW status. And you promise not to go on social media or BBB or do anything like that.” That form will save you a lot of time, money, and aggravation. And, also, it will make customers happy, because they will know they are on the exact same page as you.
If you like this video today, do me a favor and share with someone else to lessen their pain of something they may not know.
Mike Agugliaro, Business Ninja
