Let me relate a retailing story from my last doctor visit. I recently had a surgical procedure and Bev and I visited the doc for removal of the catheter. The doc knows, since the operation, that we have a furniture store. While he’s going about his business, he tells us about a furniture purchase at a competitor’s store and how he negotiated a great price on a special order.
He and his wife may be extra fussy, but they go over the furniture when it is delivered, looking for any problems and notice that some of the case goods have what looks like a date and the date is 2000. He wonders, “Is that the date it was made and if so, why is it delivered now?” So he calls the manufacturer and finds out that it was manufactured in 2000 and it’s been sitting on the floor of the furniture retailer ever since. To him it looked shopworn and he remembers specifically being told that his furniture was not coming off the showroom floor. The company told him they made a decision, later, to sell off the floor rather than order new and would not do anything further for him. The upshot of the story doesn’t matter. The point is, he is out there telling all his friends about his experience with this store!
I have always been fearful of the “virus of negativity.”. A customer has a complaint and tells ten people, and those ten tell the story to ten each and now those 100…yada, yada, yada. Pretty soon your reputation is shattered.
When it comes to complaint resolution, I have always thought “The Customer Is Always Right” was the proper solution. At Seth Godin’s Blog, Seth writes:
If the customer is wrong, they're not your customer any more.
In other words, if it's not worth making the customer right, fire her.
Fire them?
Fire them. Politely decline to do business with them. Refer them to your arch competitors. Take them off the mailing list. Don't make promises you can't keep, don't be rude, just move on.
If you've got something worth paying for, you gain power when you refuse to offer it to every single person who is willing to pay you.
Successful organizations (and I include churches and political parties on the list) fire the 1% of their constituents that cause 95% of the pain.
I. know one thing for sure. Settle the complaint as rapidly as you can When we have a complaint, Bev will fret and worry about the solution. Sure money can be an issue, but so is deciding what is the right thing and how to deal with a customer who can be unreasonable and avoid that virus of negativity. Once the complaint is resolved, it’s like a burden has been lifted from her shoulders. Settle it and get back to working your business!
How did you handle a complaint? Is the customer always right? Have you fired anyone, lately?
Email me at Landfair3554@comcast.net
