
Seth's Blog: You're right! - kyro
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/youre-right.html
======
Alex3917
To be fair, the new Prius is really hard to figure out how to turn off.

\- Taking the key out of the car doesn't turn the engine off. You have to
press a button.

\- A lot of times when you press the button the car doesn't turn off.

\- It's really hard to figure out if the car is on or off because the engine
turns off as soon as the car is stopped, so the car is completely silent.

Most people I know with the new Prius have accidently left it on at least a
few times. Since the engine is turned off the energy penalty for doing that is
minimal, the biggest concern is that the car is probably stick unlocked.

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aflag
So, the point of the article is "bullshit your customer so he feels good".
That might be good for your business, but it's terrible for society. I rather
have a straight answer than to be fooled with "oh, you're right, it won't
happen again". And if I go back there it happens again.

Maybe most parking places won't turn off the guy's car if he doesn't explain
to the workers. If that's the case the answer he got was far better than
"you're right, I'm so sorry. It won't happen again". What scares me the most
is people who want to be fooled.

~~~
ken
I didn't see anything that suggested "bullshit". I think the proposal included
the business owner actually posting a note so attendants know how to turn off
hybrid cars.

~~~
aflag
That would be nice initiative. But his main point seems to be that you just
can't give your customer the truth. Even if it's not viable, for some reason,
to make sure the situation that happened to your customer never repeats itself
again, the blogger seems to say that you better agree with the customer.
That's just wrong. You better give a straight answer, like "we are not capable
of teaching that to our workers, you should teach them yourself the next
time".

Of course, in that particular situation, giving instruction for the people
working at the parking lot _shouldn't_ be a big problem. So I agree that he
should have done it, but I stand by his choice of giving a straight answer
instead of saying he feels bad for the customer and will change things, but in
the end he doesn't.

~~~
ken
I feel like I must be reading a completely different blog post.

Can you point to where he even suggests lying? How is "I can see that you are
annoyed" in any way false? He even said of his examples, "Every one of these
statements is true". Are you responding to tone (DH2), or something he said?

~~~
aflag
That's not lying, that's bullshitting. In this sense:
<http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html>

That's not true or false, that's just something he's saying in order to make
the customer feel better. He might as well give the customer all kinds of
complements, they can be true or not, the point is that the manager don't know
(or care) if they are. He's just trying to please a customer. That's very bad
practice.

------
aneesh
I can't even count the times airlines or web hosting companies try to tell me
I'm wrong, and that that's the way it's supposed to be. A little sympathy goes
a long way.

On the other hand, when I gave feedback on kayak.com (a much better version of
priceline), they said the CTO would personally reply ... and he did! And that
made me like them enough to write about them here :)

------
redorb
Sent to the owner of our company, with a response I wanted to send a customer
basically following the advice. The owners' response "I don't think his
question even deserves a response" (was questioning our pricing) ... scares me
:( I think all questions deserve a response (-rhetorical)

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9oliYQjP
True story. I once wrote a rant of an email to Steve Jobs about how my MacBook
had died and that my experience with Mac hardware had been abysmal: the number
of actual repairs to my Macs outnumbered the number of Macs I owned!

I didn't leave my contact information. I just left the serial number to the
latest computer to exhibit a problem.

That Monday (I wrote the rant on a Saturday) I got a phone call on my cell
phone. The voice said "Hi, I'm from Apple Executive Relations. I'm calling
because you emailed our CEO Steve Jobs. I understand that you have been having
some problems with your MacBook." After the shock wore off that somebody
actually phoned me, I confirmed the details. "Okay, I see that you're in
Toronto. Would you be able to take your MacBook into store X? I know Joe (I
forget the actual name) who is their lead technician. He will ensure that your
MacBook is repaired for you and that you do not lose any data, as I understand
that you need your MacBook for a conference in a few days (I mentioned this in
the email). If that repair does not fix the underlying problem, then I'll
authorize a replacement unit. But I would appreciate if you would try this
repair one more time. The problem you are having with your MacBook was a
difficult issue for us to diagnose and a new unit might actually still have
the faulty part in it. We now know what the exact cause is and I'm confident
our repair will fix things once and for all. Is this acceptable?"

At this point, he had gained my confidence and I was rather calm. His
suggestion sounded reasonable, so I took it into the store. "Joe" the
technician indeed took care of my repair, told me that he'd received a phone
call from Apple. The part that was needed for the repair had been tremendously
backordered because the fault was widespread. He said typically that the wait
time was 5-7 business days, but that the Executive Relations guy had gone in
and manually inserted me into the head of the queue. It was 3 pm. I would have
my MacBook repaired and in my hands before noon the next day, as he'd been
ordered to tend to my MacBook first.

At 11 am the next day I got a phone call from the store that my MacBook was
ready to be picked up. Sure enough it was repaired and still works fine to
this day. I got a voicemail from the Executive Relations guy soon afterward
telling me that he had seen in the system that my MacBook was repaired. He
wanted to know if everything was working well. If I had any problems, he said
I should give him a call.

\---

Anyways, moral of the story. I really believe in phoning the customer and
speaking with them. Note that this person did not actually offer me anything
more than I would have been offered if I had just taken my MacBook in to get
repaired on my own (except jumping the queue on the backordered part). What he
did offer me was peace of mind and the feeling that I wasn't just a number on
their balance sheet somewhere. The Executive Relations guy did everything
right:

1\. He empathized with me.

2\. He tried to understand my problem.

3\. He fixed my problem.

That's just basic customer service, but you need the whole package. Just
paying lip service or empathizing without actually resolving the matter at
hand can actually make a customer even angrier. Also, telling the customer
s/he is "right" when they aren't right is a recipe for disaster. The customer
is not always right. That said, the customer always comes first. There's a
difference.

