Don’t Be Mad at Me
By Scott Hoffpauir, Managing Partner
You never think about your customers being unhappy, but inadvertently you’ll end up in situations where you have upset or even angry customers. There are many reasons you end up in these situations and in my experience, the most challenging and most stressful situations were caused because of a service outage. I remember one outage at BroadSoft in particular, where we made the 6 o’clock national news. Ouch!. As the old saying goes, your character is not defined by how you are on your best days but how you act on your worst days. Here’s a few tips on how to handle these uncomfortable situations.
Be Empathetic
First, make sure you acknowledge and are aware that these situations are very stressful. Your customer will be emotional, saying and doing things that aren’t logical or rational. Take a deep breath and let them vent. They’ll have to tell you how you’ve ruined their business, how you’re an absolute and complete loser, and why you’re to blame for missing their family bbq. It’s always best to let your customers talk and you listen. Eventually they’ll run out of steam, and then you can have a more productive conversation.
Reach Out Directly
Second, your customers want to hear from you directly. They want to know that the person in charge is aware of their issues and is leading the team to resolve them. You don’t need to be the person dealing with the details, but you do need to assure your customers that this is your highest priority. Avoiding your customers in these situations will just make them more upset and angry. You’re the face of your company — be proactive, reach out and talk to your customers.
Reassure Your Customers
Third, make sure your customers know that you’ve got the best people working on their issues. Oftentimes, you have your best and brightest working the issue, but no one has told the customer that this is the case. My go to line was always “Our leadership team is fully aware of the issues and we have our best people working them”. It’s amazing how comforting this one line is to customers. Make sure they know you’re doing everything possible to resolve their issues.
Keep Your Customer In-the-Know
Fourth, while everyone would like to resolve the issues as quickly as possible, sometimes it takes time. In these situations, it’s extremely important to constantly update your customers on progress. I always like to assign a person on the team to communicate status on a regular and periodic basis. This helped in two ways. First, it reassured our customers that we’re taking the issues seriously and we’re actively engaged. And second, it allowed our experts to focus on fixing the issues instead of constantly talking with customers. So, make sure you’re constantly and consistently communicating status and updates to your customers.
Focus the Conversation on the Solution
And last, sometimes customers will want to talk and engage on activities not directly related to resolving the issues. These may be more business related where they want to discuss repercussions and consequences, like financial restitution. And these may be more product related, where they want to discuss your processes or (gasp) your architecture. It’s always best to focus 100% on resolving the issues at hand. You’ll need to politely and courteously push back on any other requests. After the issues are resolved, then you can engage in these other discussions.
Dealing with upset and angry customers is never easy. How you deal with the situation goes a long way in defining the longevity and health of your relationship with your customers. There are tried and true ways of dealing with these situations, that work regardless of what the issues are. As a leader, you need to take charge of the situation, talk to your customers, engage your A team, communicate constantly and stay focused on resolving the issues. While no one ever wants to deal with these sort of situations, they often define how a customer perceives you and your company. Taking this approach goes a long way in building a strong relationship with your customers.
