Who’s to Blame and Does It Even Matter?

Marilyn and I have created a workbook - 30 days (or 6 weeks) to Love Them Up Customer Service - which she’s going to sell at the back of the room at a speaking engagement she has scheduled for next week.  We took our favorite blog articles, revised them appropriately and are having them printed and bound.  We’re excited about it, since it’s our first official “product” for sale and we can’t wait to see what people say about it.  

After stopping by our neighborhood 24-hour copy shop this afternoon to get the workbooks produced, I was even more excited because I ended up with a great story about how NOT to treat customers.  As is typical in the world of digital print files, it took a few trips to the copy place to get things exactly as I wanted them.  The first stop went great.  A manager named Walter took care of me, going as far as printing out and binding a proof copy for me.  He calculated the costs and gave me a print-out of what the total would be.  Unfortunately, just as I was getting ready to actually place the order, I noticed some font issues in the proof copy.  The PDF file wasn’t cooperating and I needed to replace it with a Word copy to make sure it printed out perfectly.

 

I went home and burned a second CD, returning to the store an hour or so later.  I figured, I’d been there already, had everything written up and would simply need to review a second proof, place the order and be on my way.  I had allowed myself about 20 minutes to complete this task before my son came home from his dad’s house at 4pm.

Unfortunately, a bit of confusion arose and the second print shop guy didn’t quote the order in the same way as the manager had, so a smaller number of copies would have cost me twice as much as I’d expected.  My mind went immediately to my son’s arrival at an empty house and I voiced my concern.  ”Oh, no.  Now we have to figure this out and I’m going to be late getting home for my son,” I whined.

“Well, it’s too bad you waited so long to come back with your files,” the counter person replied tartly, “This stuff takes time to figure out.”  Needless to say, I was very surprised to be “blamed” for the situation.  I hadn’t gotten crabby with this man, I’d simply expressed my concern.  And besides, what did my late arrival have to do with the confusion?  Absolutely nothing.  

What I saw was a customer service person who felt that he was being blamed for the situation and didn’t have the skills to manage his emotions.  He didn’t “get” that when a customer is upset, it’s never personal.  It’s always about the customer’s relationship with the company, not with you as an individual.  As a representative of the print shop, we all would have been much better off had he simply calmed me down with a quick “I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m working on this as quickly as I can.  Do you need me to hold on to the order for you and you can come back later tonight?”  

The most important thing to remember in any challenging customer service situation is your desired end result.  In this situation, the preferred resolution would have been a happy and calm customer.  The man’s comment about my delay in getting back to the shop did nothing to help the situation.  Fortunately for both of us, I recognized his lack of skills as exactly that and chose not to escalate the situation with my own anger.  

REFLECTIONS:  Can you think of a time that you personalized a customer’s negative comment or feedback?  How could you have managed the situation better?  Were you taking things personally?  How would you think of the situation differently if it happened again?

Written by Lori Jo Vest on www.lovethemup.com