I recently had a difficult situation; this time the shoe was on the other foot. I was the customer. I’d like to tell you what happened… Over the weekend I went to my salon to retouch my color. Unfortunately my regular stylist was busy and the salon manager convinced me to allow another stylist work on my hair.
I don’t believe I am a difficult customer; rather I am assertive as I believe your knowledge of exactly what I want will go a long way to helping you [at least] meet my expectations. So, I gave an explicit explanation of exactly what I wanted done to this new stylist. Looking back now, I should have picked on his ‘know it all’ and condescending attitude; a sure sign of trouble ahead. But I allowed him have a go at my hair.
Fast forward 4 hours and my hair is a veritable bird’s nest; I’m 4c natural so you can imagine the coils and gnarls in the strands. He kept tugging and pulling in a bid to untangle the mess and I had tears in my eyes from each tug. It was obvious that Mr Stylist was stuck. When I asserted that it was obvious that we were going nowhere, Mr Stylist said ‘Madam it’s your hair type, it’s difficult. We need to cut off the knots’. At this point The Hulk in me emerged and my ‘irate customer’ persona took over.
It all went downhill from there. I had to leave the salon with my hair mimicking a birds nest as no one else was available to fix it. At the epicenter of my angst was the fact that everyone (except Mr Stylist) did nothing constructive to fix the problem. All everyone said was ‘Sorry…’ over and over again. At this point I wanted my hair fixed not a symphony of sorry. It was obvious that every last employee at that establishment had never been trained on how to manage an irate or angry customer. [If only they had taken me up on my offer to facilitate this training for them – contact us for details of this module]. I still had to pay the full price although it was obvious that my expectations were far from met and I was walking away with a birds nest on my head. The final nail on the coffin is that as I write this (five days from the said event) I am yet to get a phone call from the manager to apologize; neither has there been any gesture towards service recovery.
Unfortunately for this salon, news of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for good service experience. I have told no less than 7 people of my bad experience – not to talk about the reach of my Facebook post. This is negative publicity that this establishment cannot afford. They failed to realize that the ideal time to address unhappy customers is at the POINT OF EXPERIENCE. When the customer leaves the establishment, they will definitely need to work more than twice as hard to wash off the bad taste of unsatisfactory service.
I had made my hair at this salon for over a year; while I was not a committed customer, I was comfortable and familiar with their services. Unfortunately this episode pushed me past committed headed towards separation. All from one incident you say? Yes…the grim reality is that each customer has ideals they hold dear; for me respect and empathy top the list. For some customers price tops the list, for others it prestige. Do you know what your customers need? Are you poised to give it to them on a consistent basis?
Have you ever encountered an irate or difficult customer? Most people who work in customer facing roles have; they will own that it’s not a part of their job that they relish. In fact, more of us than are willing to own to it will confess that they would do almost anything to get out of having to face an irate, difficult or disappointed customer. The sad reality is that if employers would invest in top notch customer service training for their employees, they would retain more of their customers and gain customer loyalty and commitment.
I want to throw my hat in the ring and offer seven steps to help you when next you encounter a difficult customer situation. Yes, different customers respond to different things, but just take this as the rule of thumb and balance it out with what you know of the customer [you do know your customers don’t you?] – Read the linked article to get an idea on the kinds of things customers want; I call them ‘Customer Demandments’.
LISTEN: Many times when a customer is complaining or expressing displeasure they are also giving you a clue about what is important to them; the key to turning the situation around. In my case, I endured the painful tugs on my scalp but totally lost it when Mr Stylist suggested I cut my hair. In my outburst I mentioned this fact multiple times, but no one caught it. No one was listening. When you listen to a customer, it’s important that your body language shows that you are really interested in what the customer is saying. Many times client reps say they are listening but their body language is saying something entirely different. There are skills to effective active listening, and client reps must master these skills.
SHOW EMPATHY: Speaking of active listening skills, the most important attitude you must show when listening to a customer – irate or not – is empathy. Empathy has nothing to do with making doe eyes at the customer; or making those ineffectual little sounds that we often thing conveys a feeling of …well empathy. When you show empathy, you show you understand how the customer feels. It’s important to say that you respond to how the customer is feeling; is she hurt, confused, upset etc. If you can connect with the feelings you are better equipped to turn the bad situation around. So, show empathy.
ASK QUESTIONS: As a customer who has encountered the impotent attempts of service providers to calm raging clients; it’s sad to realize that hardly anyone asks questions fundamental to finding a solution to the clients’ angst. In my neck of the woods all I hear is a litany of ‘sorry’. That never really helps. In fact, it could further enrage the customer. The ideal thing is to ask open ended questions like ‘what happened’ ‘when did this happen’ ‘where did this happen’. You aren’t asking questions just for the sake of it. You are asking questions to first understand the root cause of the problem, to identify what the client needs to make things right and also because asking the right questions will more often than not help you start the process of calming the customer down.
We will conclude this topic next week; but I wish to add here that sometimes customers get upset for reasons that really are no fault of ours (service providers). When this happens what then do we do? Are our employees trained on how not to take customer pushback personally?
Have you ever had a customer get really upset at something that really was not your fault? How did you diffuse or manage the situation? Please share your experience I would love to learn from you.
In the meantime visit our online shop and download a copy of our ebook ‘The Spark of Service’ – it contains 10 actionable customer service strategies you can use in your business with ease.
