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Video Summary
Have you even dealt with upset customers? Or, have you ever been upset when dealing with a company? Of course, you have.
Somewhere in the process someone screwed up and it cost you time, money, energy, or some combination of those. There are 3 primary types of “upsets” and 3 effective questions to ask when there are upset customers. There’s power in these three questions as they can save a customer or client relationship. Continue watching to know more.
Video Transcript
Have you ever been upset when dealing with a company? Of course, you have. Somewhere in the process someone screwed up and it cost you time, money, energy, or some combination of those. For example, this past weekend I was helping my wife, Bryn, put in a small vegetable garden in our backyard.
Among other things we needed soil to raise the bed above the lawn. So, I went out and calculated the cubic feet of soil that we would need for the garden. As long as we were going to buy some soil, I decided to get some extra for the lawn.
Over the winter some grassy areas died off and needed a fresh planting of grass seeds so I would need soil for those areas. Some other areas have sunk a little over the years, so I wanted to fill in and level out the lawn a little bit. It’s pretty easy to figure out how much soil is needed within an enclosed area of a garden. And it’s not so easy to determine how much is needed in various patches around the lawn. So I estimated I would need about 5 bags of soil.
Handling Upset Customers
After we finished the garden, I worked on the lawn. When I had used all 5 bags up, I realized I could use several more, but I really didn’t want to go back to the store to buy 4 more bags of soil. But it turns out we needed a couple more things for the garden, so Bryn said she would go to the store, but she didn’t want to run around this time in this monstrous store in garden center to gather up those items.
No problem, I said, for a few extra bucks we can order online and someone at the store will pick out the items, have them ready, and put them in your car. We had a win-win-win situation. I don’t have to go to the store, Bryn doesn’t have to find or load the items, and the store they get a few extra dollars for their trouble. It’s the perfect plan… Until Bryn gets home.
She got exactly what she needed for the garden, but I did not get what I needed for the lawn. Instead of 4 bags of premium topsoil, the store loaded 6 bags of regular topsoil. Briefly, I thought it was rather generous of them to give us 2 extra bags of soil, but that’s not the point. That was 1 of the 3 errors they made.
- They gave us the wrong soil.
- They gave us the wrong quantity.
- When someone drives off the lot, an employee verifies that the content matches the receipt. I assume this is to prevent theft from an area where people are allowed to load their own product. Anyway, that check also failed.
And I didn’t tell Bryn the exact soil I had ordered so she didn’t recognize the error either. Now I am upset. I tried to save time, but it backfired. It’s a half hour round trip to the store, so suddenly I would have been better off going myself and picking up the correct products. I would have saved time, saved money, and saved frustration.
So what could I do? I could accept the error. In reality, they gave me more soil than I paid for. Six bags of topsoil is worth more than 4 bags of premium topsoil. And it covers more lawn so if I underestimated again, this would help. From that perspective, I would come out ahead.
But accepting the error posed 2 problems for me. First, it’s the wrong soil. I wanted the same premium topsoil I had already used. There’s a quality difference and I wanted to use the better soil. It spreads nicely and there were not many sticks or rocks mixed in.
Second, keeping 6 bags when I paid for 4 felt a lot like stealing. Sure, I could justify it since it’s their mistake. And when I was angry about the error, I even thought I could keep 2 bags and swap 4. Who would question that since the receipt showed 4? But in my mind, keeping something I didn’t pay for is not right. So, I called the store, and I talked to Tom. He said I should meet him at door 14 and he would replace the soil with what I had purchased.
So that’s what I did. I drove back, found Tom, he took the 6 bags of regular topsoil out of my car and gave me 4 bags of the premium topsoil and apologized for the inconvenience. End of story! Did Tom do enough? I would argue that while my order was now corrected, the situation was not made right.
Types of “Upsets”
There are 3 primary types of “upsets”.
There’s miscommunication, unmet expectations, and misguided intentions. In this case, communication was fine. I placed the order online and all parties had receipts. And I don’t believe any intentions were misguided. All parameters around the transaction were realistic and no one was trying to make a mistake. It just happened.
But there were unmet expectations. My expectations. I placed a very precise order and I got something else. So how should this have been handled? There are 3 effective questions to ask when an upset has occurred.
Effective Questions to Handle Upset Customers
Question number one is “What happened?”. Everyone involved needs to understand the specifics about that incident and what caused the upset.
Question number two is “What should have happened?”. This question helps to confirm that the desired outcome really was unmet.
In this particular story, when I first spoke to Tom, I started with what should have happened and then what actually happened. I told him about the order I had placed, how my wife picked it up, and it was when she got home that I discovered the errors that were made.
That brings us to the very important question number three which is, “How can we make it right?” This is the question where I see the most failure. How many upsets could be turned around if only this question were asked?
And keep in mind, every upset includes at least 2 parties, so this question is looking for a resolution designed to keep the relationship intact. A good resolution can help your client or customer feel that you and your business truly care. By handling an upset well, you potentially strengthen a relationship by building trust.
Handling an Upset Poorly
By handling an upset poorly, you certainly reduce trust and diminish the relationship. With my honesty about the number of bags of soil I had received, I provided the store with good feedback about a potential systems problem they have. I expressed the fact that those 2 extra bags might be good compensation for the extra effort I had to go through to return to the store to correct the error.
I offered this method for them to make it right. Another acceptable offer would have been to be refunded the few extra dollars I originally paid for the convenience of picking up an order that was picked out for me. Neither of these was offered. Tom pulled the 6 bags out of my car. Put the 4 correct bags in and sent me on my way with a simple “sorry for the inconvenience”.
Did they make it right? I got the product I wanted, but it cost me extra time. It cost me money in gasoline. And it makes me think less of this store than I did a few days ago. There are no winners in this situation, though the store does not suffer much with my disappointment. They still got paid in full.
Want another quick story? A few years ago I’m filling my car’s gas tank. Pump nozzles are supposed to automatically shut off the gas pumps when it senses that the tank is full. On this particular day, at this particular pump, that did not happen. The pump did not shut off. So, gasoline is spilling down my car, splashing onto the pavement, splashing onto me.
And I’m frantically looking around for a way to make it stop. Finally, I find the emergency shut off button and I hit it! I walk into the store to report what happened. The store manager says he’ll put up a sign up so that no one else uses that pump until it’s fixed. Then he gives me a code to run my car through their car wash. I asked about a refund for the several gallons of gas poured onto the pavement that clearly did not go into my car. He told me the value of the car wash will cover that!
Seriously? The car wash covers the fact that my car needs to be cleaned because of this problem. A refund should cover the gas on the ground. And maybe, there could have been an offer to clean my clothing and even the inside of my car since I would have to drive home with the gasoline on my clothes which would transfer to the flooring and maybe even to the seat. The situation is not right until I have been restored to the original condition plus the gas that I paid for.
Have I ever gone back to that gas station? No way! And for months I avoided all stations of that brand.
There’s power in these three questions…
What happened?
What should have happened?
And, how can we make it right?
What experience have you had where these questions could have resolved a situation for you? Or, as a business owner, have you used these questions with success to save a customer or client relationship?
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Thanks much, and have a great day!
