AlphaTrilogy.com

31 July 2007

The Key To Keeping A Customer When Everything Goes Bad: Pour on the Heat!

Posted by Darrell under: Rantings Of An Outdoorsman .

Ok, let’s say you have a business, and hopefully your business has customers. If you don’t have a business, then hopefully you’ve got family or friends. You can use this successfully to resolve conficts with them, too.

You might be wondering what customer service has to do with hunting and fishing. To be honest, many of my outdoor buddies have businesses of one kind or another. Their ability to continue hunting and fishing with me is directly tied to the success of their business. My ability to hunt and fish on a  regular schedule is, again, tied to the satisfaction of my company’s customers. If I have upset customers, I wil likely have less time for the outdoors (and less money). Period.

One thing that can damage a business worse that anything else is an upset customer. Kristine wrote a post yesterday about When Good Customer Service Goes Bad. I’d venture to guess that her friends and her will not be talking too kindly about the restaurant in question. They probably won’t be returning anytime soon. Kristine gave some good tips on what the restaurant could have done different: 1) listen, 2) don’t make excuses, 3) plan for disaster.

I learned the key to dealing with upset customers many years ago and it has had a direct influence on how much time I’m able to spend in the woods each year (BTW, I spend a lot of time in the woods). The key is using the HEAT method:

     Hear - Step 1
     Empathize - Step 2
     Apologize - Step 3
     Take control - Step 4

Step 1: Hear. As Kristine pointed out in her post, the first step is to listen to what the customer has to say. Don’t cut them off. Don’t  anticipate what they will say. Just simply listen. Over 50% of the time, the customer will feel better about the situation after they’ve been allowed to get the entire matter off their chest. I’ve seen customers really go off and left untethered say much more than they intended. Often, this will lead to them realizing what they’ve just done - and apologizing (yes, I said they might apologize to you) for overreacting. So, shut up and listen!

Step 2: Empathize. Show that you are human and even more importantly demonstrate that you UNDERSTAND why the customer is upset. You can do this by simply stating “I completely UNDERSTAND why you feel the way you do. If I was in your situation, I, too, would feel that way”. This single comment will have likely won you that customer for life - regardless of what the problem is.

Step 3: Apologize. I would never, ever take blame for something that isn’t my fault. However, I learned a long time ago that making excuses just doesn’t cut it (Kristine nailed this one, too). An upset customer doesn’t care who’s fault it is. So apologize! Don’t take blame if it’s not your fault. But, still, apologize. How can you apologize without taking blame? Simple, “I’m so sorry that you had to endure this situation” or something along this line. They want to hear an apology, so give it to them.

Step 4: Take Control. If you’ve done the first 3 steps, most of the time you won’t even need this step to keep the customer happy. Often, somewhere between empathy and apology, the customer will say “Hey, I understand this sort of thing happens. Its Ok. I’ll live with it. Thanks for understanding”. What, though, if they don’t. Do not simply ask “What can I do to make this better?” People don’t like being put on the spot and chances are the customer doesn’t have a clue what they actually want. When forced to give an answer, their response will be “I want this to have not happened in the first place”. Well, guess what. Unless you have a genie trapped somewhere in a bottle, you simply can’t give them that wish. What can you do? Take control. Tell them what you are going to do to make this matter right. Often, it doesn’t have to be giving them something directly to make them happy. “This situation has shown me that we need additional training for our employees and I’m going to begin working on that immediately. Additionally, I’ll make sure we have a larger staff next Friday and that we are better prepared to deal with large groups. I hope you’ll come back and let me prove it to you. Your first drink will be on me.” Bam. Done. Another satisified customer and you haven’t offered anything that will cause financial harm to your company. Of course, following through and doing the training, etc will help prevent a similar problem from happening in the future.

What though when this isn’t enough? (I must say it is rare when this won’t work, and when it doesn’t it is generally because you have really really messed up or you’ve got a really cranky customer). This is when you ask “What can I do to make this up to you?” Whatever the reply, if you are capable of doing it - do it. If you don’t - the long term loss you will experience will far outweigh the price of their meal or the shipping charge on their custom rod. I’d rather be in the woods stalking a whitetail rather than answering consumer complaints from the Better Business Bureau or the Attorney General’s Office or the customer’s credit card company. What is your time worth anyway?

You will notice that no where in this post did I say that “the customer is always right”. Only a moron would trully believe that. I’ve found that often the customer isn’t right - at least from a legal standpoint. Regardless, you need to treat them like they are right. Don’t let an over inflated sense of justice impede you from using HEAT to quickly resolve the matter.

The HEAT method works outside the business environment, too. You can also use it with friends and family. Once you become a master of the HEAT method, I can almost guarantee you more time for hunting and fishing!

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