Companies like to complain about customer behavior. They talk about mistakes that customers make, the things that they don't know, and all the "outrageous" demands that customers actually have the gall to ask for. 

    Somehow many service providers conveniently forget all the mistakes they make for which the customer suffers. They have amnesia about the things they don't know about their customers; and they seem to not notice the demands they place on their customers. In fact, I would suggest that organizations are more likely to mistreat their customers, than customers mistreat organizations.

    I have heard so many service providers tell me, "You should have..." Literally, anything could fill in the blanks. You should have brought the form with you. You should have called during our regular business hours. You should have called our regular number, and not our toll-free number. You should have called earlier; you should have gotten the person's name; you should have asked that it be sent special delivery, etc. Yet, how many times do customers not get something from an organization because of a mistake made by some representative inside the organization. Somehow organizations seem to think that if they make a mistake that a simple "I'm sorry," is adequate compensation. When the customer makes a mistake, however, they have to live with the consequences.

     All this mistreatment, unfortunately, creates a mood on both sides. Service providers remember all the ridiculous customer behavior. And each individual customer carries a company template in their memory banks, and it probably contains at least a brief memory of mistreatment by the organization.

     This is not the best basis on which to begin a customer interaction. The beginning step for heightening sensitivity about this issue of mistreatment is to increase awareness of the total customer standing in front of us. Service providers might be advised to view their customers, especially their complaining customers as:
 

•  customers who certainly have not received perfect service from our organization, unless they are brand new to us; and

•  customers who probably remember many of the mistakes that have been visited upon them.

   One simple way that service providers can increase their sensitivity is by asking two questions of their customers when they detect any degree of irritation or upset. First, they can ask: Has this happened before? There is a good chance that it has. Acknowledging the history the customer brings with him or her will go a long way towards showing empathy. If the customer answers yes to the question, "Has this happened before?", the service provider must apologize for these past wrongs. Chances are that nothing can be done to fix these situations from the past, but they can be recognized.

     In fact, most customers hear a more typical comment: "We've never heard that before." I just recently heard this myself when telling a florist about flowers I had purchased in the past. Every time the roses wilted after two days. The florist assured me that she had never heard this before. So, I bought some more roses, two bunches in fact. Both wilted after two days.

   Second, if a mistake has occurred, the service provider could ask after first handling the mistake: "Has something else happened?" At times a customer respond, "Yes, and I was on hold for 20 minutes," or "I called yesterday and was given a different answer," or any other number of possible responses.  Again, the service provider must apologize, and perhaps take this additional example of poor customer service into considering how the customer will be compensated for these lapses in service.

   Our experience is that acknowledging the mistreatment customers have experienced in the past helps to get rid of it. The next time the customer appears in front of one of your organization's service providers, chances are that event will have been truly erased from their experience of your firm.

   There is no escaping the fact that customers show up with a history, and it is the responsibility of the service provide to manage that entire history. It is remarkably easy to do so by merely asking a couple of questions whenever a mistake has occurred or when the customer appears upset or irritated: Has this happened before? and, Has something else happened?
 

©Janelle M. Barlow, , 1999
Coauthor, A Complaint Is a Gift
 

Previous "Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages: 
 

#1	Overselling Service
#2	Not Listening to Complaints
#3	Plastic Chicken
#4	Complaints You Can Do Nothing About
#5	A+ Complaint Handling
#6	Beware! Others are Watching You
#7	At Least Keep Talking!
#8	Let Customers Know You'll Tell Someone
#9	If You're Going to Apologize, Then Mean It
#10	Keep Front-life Staff Well Informed
#11	Don't Set Goals to Reduce Complaints
#12	Products Used During Special Events
#13	Best Practices of Complaint-friendly Organizations
#14	Complaints About Mother Nature!
#15	Socially Offensive Situations
#16	A Complaint Is a Gift in Action
#17	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, I
#18	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, II
#19	Creating an Internal Service Culture
#20	When Your Customers are Industrial Buyers
#21	Customers Who are Poor Complainers
#22	Complaints That are Difficult to Talk About

We invite you to submit your "best" examples by fax or e-mail. We won't print any company names with the "poor" examples, because we believe that every organization fails from time to time. We will give credit to companies delighting their customers. In the case of the "poor" examples, we'll comment on how we think this situation could have been handled better. If you want us to list your name, please tell us that is what you want to do.

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Training Program 

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Book

Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases, we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to reach them. Janelle Barlow

tel: 702 939-1800

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