How much extra weight are your customers carrying? I am clearly not talking about the results of overdoing the Christmas festivities (if we can call them that!), but more, the additional psychological baggage that comes from past experiences. This ‘baggage’ is made up of negative interactions with possibly your company and almost certainly, other companies they have bought from over the years.
Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. When we need to bring a problem to a customer service representative’s attention and get it resolved, the experience and service we receive can be varied!
Sometimes, the complaint resolution process is a smooth, easy ride: we are placated and reassured, the representative takes our issue seriously; they both understand and empathise with how we are feeling, and they take responsibility for fixing the issue – and fix it they do! They view our problem as their problem, and they will not rest until they have sorted it to the highest level of our satisfaction. The experience is not just a pain-free one but a positive one too. Often, we are left with warm feelings about the company and a stronger sense of loyalty than perhaps we had prior to the issue arising.
And then, by contrast, we may have a very different experience. Excuses are given before we have even finished sharing the issue. The blame is planted very firmly at our feet, or if not at ours, then with another department, a supplier or with the ‘other’ co-worker who originally took our order. The person dealing with our issue’s primary goal is to leave the interaction feeling both blameless, and good about themself! In the meantime, we – the customer - are made to feel a whole heap of negative emotions – including guilt for complaining in the first place!
The latter leaves us with a bad taste in our mouth. Every time we have another negative customer experience (our problem remains unsolved, we are blamed, we are passed around like a ‘hot potato’, we cannot get through all the ‘options’ at the very start of a phone call), then we start to build what we refer to at Sandler as ‘defensive gates’.
‘Defensive gates’ are fundamentally associated with FEAR. Before we even decide to share an issue or challenge, all those past negative experiences come flooding back into our mind and we fear we will probably go through the same thing and our issue will remain unresolved. Why do defensive gates matter? Because a customer bringing this baggage with them can be far trickier to help and work with. It’s therefore important we work to bring their ‘defensive gates’ down.
Overcoming ‘defensive gates’
Create trust: Build trust with your customers over time: show empathy and always keep to your promises and commitments.
Communicate well: Keep your communications clear and concise and always avoid company and technical jargon. Make them feel as comfortable as you can during the interaction.
Share your process: Have a process for dealing with issues and complaints and take your customer through it so they always understand what the next steps are.
Own the issue: Accept responsibility where it is due: don’t make excuses or cast blame elsewhere. If the customer really is at fault, gently educate them and help them solve things so the situation doesn’t reoccur.
Keep them in the loop: If you can’t resolve an issue there and then, agree a time when you will come back to them (either with a solution or an update).
Check in: Make sure at the end of the communication, the customer is happy with both the solution and how you have handled it.
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