

Sorry, but your customers don't care if you're sorry. - evanhamilton
http://www.uservoice.com/blog/entries/your-customers-dont-care-if-youre-sorry/

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RyanMcGreal
> Guess what: your customer doesn’t care how your system works.

This, absolutely. I once experienced a long, drawn-out fiasco with a major
department store in which they compounded numerous screw-ups and oversights
with consistently rude, unhelpful service and constant referrals from one
department to another. "No, sir, you're talking to customer service for sales.
You need to be talking to customer service for sales and support. Here's the
number."

In my final, desperate email to the company's senior management team, which
motivated someone with the power to fix the issue to intervene, I noted the
insanity of a customer having to learn the company's internal organizational
structure and process flow just to get their order fixed.

A company's customer service interface should be a black-box API: customer
request goes in, and a reasonable response comes out. I shouldn't have to know
or care what you have to do internally to make it happen.

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nobody_nowhere
Mine do. They know we're doing complex, cutting-edge work and appreciate
what's involved. They have a tolerance for problems and understand that their
other alternatives have drawbacks, occasional failures and limitations as
well.

They appreciate "sorry" and tell me so, and appreciate transparency into our
failures and shortcomings when they occur.

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IsaacL
Sorry, but employees don't care that customers don't care that the company is
sorry.

In other words: you're right, but frontline employees are rarely motivated or
trained to solve small issues in outside-the-box ways like this. At some
places they're actively forbidden to do anything outside the officially
approved way of doing things.

~~~
drharris
This is definitely the cause of such situations. Yes, changing the routine
might only cost a quarter, but the end employee has no reason to want to go
out of his way to help; he is compensated for standing there each hour, not
for finding creative solutions to problems. Now, assuming it is actually an
employee who cares, we deal with the assumption the manager/supervisor will
actually allow people to step outside the box. In my experience, this is a
non-starter. Managers and supervisors at places like this tend to be the
original front-line employees who weren't able to actually get out of there,
implying that they also cannot think outside the box.

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hluska
This article made me angry....

The writer went into a bakery and was treated pleasantly enough by someone who
likely makes minimum wage. In environments like bakeries, or food service,
staff are usually taught 'obey, obey, obey' or get fired. How many options do
you think this fellow has? Do you think that working a till in a bakery is
really his lifelong dream?

When I was young, I had a myriad of jobs. One was driving delivery/washing
dishes in a pizza joint. When I was doing delivery, I had to take every single
customer a free pop. And, if I didn't fill the plastic, 1 liter cup more than
halfway with ice, the owner of the place would go on a tirade, scream at me,
call me horrible things, and generally lose his shit. Pop in general is rather
disgusting, but pop that contains > 50% ice is a new kind of disgusting.

It took me six months to work up the nerve to quit.

~~~
evanhamilton
Thanks for the feedback, hluska. I hear you...I've been in the same jobs and
had no power. I was really trying to use this example to point out how
companies need to have a culture of actually solving problems rather than
shrugging and saying "sorry". I do think it needs to happen at the company
level, otherwise you're right...the dude at the coffee shop will do what is
less likely to get him fired.

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gawker
Tim Ferriss talked about the 80%/20% principle. I wonder if the bakery
considered the author as one of the 80% who's not bringing in the majority of
the revenue.

Although I think all customers should be valued and treated as well as can be,
there's hopefully always going to be more customers than there are staff
(otherwise, it's probably a bad sign) and I'm not sure if they can dedicate so
much attention and going all out. It's definitely everyone's business problem
- how can you serve all your customers with the best service using minimal
staff.

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tjoff
As a customer I care, deeply, about a sincere apology.

 _Take the time to help your customers, even if it means circumventing your
system. Walk the 3 feet to talk to the chef. Send someone a check if your
system can’t do refunds. Give someone another game if it turns out your games
only work on PC._

And when that doesn't pan out, a sincere apology can still go a very long way.

~~~
evanhamilton
+300 :)

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Mystitat
Great article, though misleading title. Some but not all customers will care
if you're sincerely sorry, but probably all don't care how your system is
limiting you. If we could solve all problems perfectly with a predefined
system, we wouldn't need human customer service. We need people to recognize
when the solution lies outside the usual routine.

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Qworg
I think a savvy, empowered employee would say, "No problem sir" and order
themselves whatever side they wanted to eat in a bit. =)

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devinmrn
Many of these systems are in place because they automate record keeping and
accounting, would this transaction modification decrease the effectiveness of
the system? How can employees be better tasked to bend business rules while
still working within the systems provided?

~~~
gawker
Agreed - it might be the policy of the company for record keeping purposes to
ensure the financials tally up at the end of the year.

~~~
evanhamilton
Sure, it might...but your financials will also look bad if you slowly bleed
customers through bad customer service. Again, I think this is an opportunity
for organizational change - even if the employee can't solve my problem right
then, he should bring up the inflexibility of his system with his employers
and they should try to change it.

That said - and as many commenters have pointed out - the employee probably
wasn't empowered to make or suggest any changes to the business. :\

~~~
gawker
True - I agree. But yeah, many cases we're faced with people who aren't
empowered to make decisions and the people at the top sometimes probably don't
know about these issues. All of them get squashed by middle management. So,
maybe your bringing of attention the problem might get some eyes :)

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mcmillion
Not only is the writer off base with a lot of readers, but he also kind of
just sounds like a dick.

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SageChara
...Unless they're Canadian

