Plan for Customer Service Problems

Ok, a little tough love today. We’ve all had customer service experiences like the one that follows. But, what’s great about being an independent is that you have complete power to solve customer satisfaction problems. If you have a plan.

Now, if you’re like me, you probably can’t believe some of the dumb excuses and explanations companies use to defend a record of lousy customer service.

One of my favorites is, “I’ve been in business for more than 30 years.”

Who cares?

That’s one of the dumbest excuses I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard it twice, that’s right, twice, in just the last month. It occurred to me to answer, “Maybe if I’d bought my product 30 years ago, I’d have gotten better service.”

Don’t excuse poor customer service

Don’t make excuses. If a customer gets lousy service from you, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in business. The fact that companies get away with crummy service for so long doesn’t surprise me. For many people, it’s easier to take the loss than to fight for satisfaction. Just because people don’t complain, don’t think they forget.

Sure, sometimes bad things happen. You’re having a family crisis that impacts the quality of your work. You have a run of bad luck that burdens you with faulty equipment.

And yes, sometimes you just get a complainer for a customer.

If you have a real crisis

If it’s a real crisis, you might have to turn away a few customers, cut expenses, or see if you can get a competitor to take on some of your clients. You might even have to throw in the towel and get a regular job for awhile. These things happen. They’re not pretty and we don’t like to think about them, but they do happen. Let’s not pretend they don’t.

Don’t give up too soon

On the other hand, don’t give up at the first sign of trouble. Marshal your resources. Contact your customers and explain the situation. If you’ve suddenly been asked to take over care of your elderly parents and it’s eating up half of your normal workday, let your clients know what’s happening. Offer to refer the ones you can afford to lose to somebody else. Cut your administrative expenses, if you can.

Plan for problems

The big takeaway from this should be: HAVE A PLAN. Yes Virginia, you need to plan for problems.

Use these steps:

1. Imagine the problems you might run into. At least 3: Simple but recurring problems, a problem with a project, a problem with your life.
2. Write them down, each on a different piece of paper (or on a different page in your file editor/word processor).
3. List possible solutions for the problems. For the recurring problems, think about why they might recur. Maybe it’s a process that you need to fix. Maybe there is something wrong with your business model. List everything, even the most outlandish solutions.
4. Pick the top 3 solutions for each problem and highlight them. By top 3, I mean those that you think will be most effective for the customer and those that you would actually do.
5. Write a short script, using dialogue, for how you will communicate each of these solutions to your clients. Just write down one sentence in the imaginary voice of your client, complaining about the problem. Then, write your response, as though you were speaking to them either over the phone or in person.
6. When you’ve completed the exercise, edit and revise the solutions and scripts and re-read them daily for three weeks. After that, you can file them, where you can easily find them again when you need them.

And trust me, you will need them. This exercise does several things for you:

• Gives you a solid response that you won’t even need to think about when problems arise.
• Provides you with peace of mind because you’ve got a plan.
• Gives your customers confidence in your ability to adapt to problems and to provide top-notch service.

In the next week, I’m going to start a series on how to set customer expectations and manage your customer interactions. Miscommunication seems to be the cause of many customer service problems and having a plan and process can increase your productivity and improve customer satisfaction.

I’d love to hear what kinds of customer complaints you’ve run into and how you’ve handled them.