Before you can catch your breath, she continues:
“I am a very important opera singer, and our company is here at this hotel for one night. I always make it clear when they make our reservations that I am to sleep in nothing smaller than a king bed. This room has a queen bed. How did you allow this to happen? Didn’t they tell you that a diva was staying here tonight?”
“Yes, you are a diva,” you think silently to yourself, as you ponder your options. The hotel is sold out. It is now past midnight. And no one ever informed the front desk that anyone staying tonight had to have a king bed. As you keep thinking, she demands to know, “What are you going to do about this outrage?”
Now it’s your turn. Oh, and of course, you are the only person left on duty tonight. In this chapter, we offer some tips on how to deal with an angry customer.
Mirror the Customer’s Emotions
This person is confronting you, and if you are like most people, you probably feel like defending yourself (“Ma’am, we have no record of this request”) or setting limits (“You have to understand that we are sold out tonight, and there is nothing more we can do”). Both of these responses will probably just shift her from being angry to going ballistic. So what else can you do?
For starters, mirror her outrage. She is using emotionally charged phrases and terms like “How dare you” and “outrage” to try to get your attention. Matching her emotions feels like you are veering dangerously close to accepting blame, but you aren’t. Instead, you are acknowledging what she is feeling and treating her complaints as being legitimate to her. And frankly, it is your only hope of getting her to calm down and talk rationally with you. Try lines like these:
“That’s outrageous! I don’t blame you at all for wanting your usual bed.”
“What a rude surprise, especially the night before a performance!”
“I can tell by your tone of voice how much you were inconvenienced tonight.”
How will she respond to this? Perhaps she will calm down. Perhaps she will continue ranting. Either way, one thing is clear: If you don’t acknowledge how upsetting this is to her, it is practically guaranteed that she will get even more upset. Next, you must move on to problem solving.
Explore the Options
You are basically a very nice person. In a situation like this, you would probably love nothing better than to move this guest to a room with a king bed posthaste. Unfortunately, you do not have that option, unless you want to go wake up and move another guest—which Ms. Diva would probably love you to do. So at this point you have two choices: (1) ask her what she might like in lieu of a king bed, or (2) go for the LPFSA (Low Probability Face-Saving Alternative) problem-solving technique we discussed in Chapter 8.
This guest is so angry that it may feel hard to ask what she wants—for fear she will demand a king’s ransom, or your head on a platter—but you must move forward and trust in your communications skills to handle whatever she responds with. Otherwise you will be blindly proposing solutions without ever making her part of the process, which is usually a recipe for disaster. Try framing your question something like this:
“First, I want to apologize that you weren’t put in a room with a king bed, and I intend to find out why this didn’t happen. If I could move you right now, I would gladly do that. Unfortunately, we are completely sold out tonight, and I don’t have another room available. I realize you wanted a larger bed, but I wanted to explore if there is anything else we can do for you to make this a good stay tonight. Perhaps something nice from room service?”
This statement apologizes for the situation, even though the fault of the situation is not yet clear (and is irrelevant at this stage). It also promises action, summarizes the situation, and engages her to solve it with you. How will she respond?
She may propose a mutually acceptable solution, such as breakfast in bed tomorrow. If so, congratulations: You’re done.
She may continue railing on about how unacceptable this is. Keep acknowledging this and offering solutions.
She may propose something unacceptable, like a free week’s stay in the future. In this case, acknowledge her (“I can’t blame you for being upset enough to want that”) and calmly keep responding with what you can do.
In each of these cases, you are now engaged in a totally mechanical process of acknowledgment and problem solving, as outlined in Chapter 6. Keep working the process, and see if a solution presents itself.
Use the LPFSA
If you are still stuck at this point, the LPFSA may represent your best chance of closing the transaction on a peaceful note. Examples of such alternatives might include offering to try to arrange a room at a nearby hotel (she is not likely to want to leave at midnight, especially with her entourage), or offering to swap rooms if other guests vacate theirs prior to her bedtime.
Using the LPFSA effectively requires disclosing that your suggestions are low-probability alternatives. Moreover, the customer needs to perceive that you are sincerely trying to be helpful and not just trying to get rid of her. That said, creatively brainstorming options can send a powerful signal to the guest that you are engaged with her problem and thinking on her behalf.
Show a Personal Interest
Most desk clerks would focus on this guest’s problems, and her anger, in situations like this one. A few people, however, would take things a step further and show a personal interest in her by using appropriate questions and/or compliments. For example, some might ask her about her performance, explore how sleep affects her singing, or express interest in the fact that she is an opera star.
You do have to be careful here: The wrong kinds of questions can sound patronizing, especially if you haven’t done enough yet to try to resolve her concerns. Follow your gut on how to proceed. Many bad customer relationships can be turned around when you honor the customer’s self-importance, as discussed in Chapter 9. When you respect your guests as people, with their own unique gifts and needs, even angry and arrogant ones can ultimately leave with a good impression of you and your service.
CHAPTER 13
The Concert That
Never Was
LAST NIGHT’S EVENT was billed as the biggest rock concert of the century, and Julia and her best friend couldn’t wait to attend. First, the headliners had been Julia’s favorite band since childhood, and she had never seen them live. Second, she won her tickets in a major, corporate-sponsored giveaway. Third, she traveled over two hundred miles to a major city to see this concert. It was going to be a very special night.
Except that it never happened. The concert promoter had printed special tickets just for this corporate giveaway in the sponsor’s color and logo, but unfortunately, the event facility was never told about them. So when Julia and her friend arrived for the concert, they were turned away. No amount of pleading, coaxing, or tears could persuade any of the event staff to let them in. In fact, when she finally got to speak to a manager, he threatened to have them both arrested for forging their tickets.
The next day, Julia appeared on a major morning television program describing how she and her friend were treated, and her story became part of the national news feed. You are a public relations representative for the corporation that awarded her the tickets, and have been asked by your management to contact Julia and “clean up the mess.” How would you handle this? In this chapter, we examine how to effectively handle a very public incident that your organization ultimately caused.
Talk with the Customer First
First and foremost, you need to reach out to Julia; she deserves the respect of being contacted before you respond in public. Her reactions, and her expectations, will also help frame your public response to this situation.
So how is Julia likely to react? She will probably be pretty angry; after all, she was upset enough to take her story to the media. She also was wronged at a very fundamental level: She was hoping to attend a concert by her favorite band and instead ended up being turned away and threatened wit
h arrest. Finally, the problem was completely your fault.
This may not be an easy conversation to have, but it can follow a very clear process similar to the one outlined in Chapters 2 and 3: Lean into her criticism and acknowledge her as deeply as possible by using validation and identification. You can also help defuse her anger by asking good assessment questions, as discussed in Chapter 8. Here is a sample:
Julia: I was dreaming about this concert for weeks, and it turned into a complete nightmare!
You: (leaning in) This sounds horrible, Julia. (validation) I know everyone was really looking forward to this concert. This couldn’t have turned out worse for you, and I feel terrible that we were responsible for it.
Julia: The people at the auditorium made my friend and I feel like common criminals! You have absolutely no idea how humiliated I was.
You: (identification) I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you! That sounds really awful. Especially when you did absolutely nothing wrong. (assessment) Tell me more about what happened.
The key ingredients to this dialogue are to acknowledge everything she says, respect the legitimacy of each of her feelings, and learn as much as you can about the situation, while making no effort whatsoever at this stage to defend yourself. How long should you continue this process? Until Julia has had her say. Give her the time and space to express whatever feelings she needs to, and respond to each and every one of them.
Finally, you need to have a clear apology early in the conversation that takes full ownership of what happened, acknowledges its consequences for her, and promises to make things right. Here is an example:
“Julia, we caused a heartbreaking situation for you this week. Because of our mistakes, you not only had to miss the concert after traveling so far, but the situation was handled in a way that was infuriating and humiliating for you. I want to apologize on behalf of everyone who was involved, and let you know that we will do everything in our power to make this up to you.”
Practice Creative Service Recovery
What happens next, after you have done enough acknowledgment and apologized for the situation? Usually the conversation will naturally turn to what needs to happen from here. We call this phase service recovery because it involves recovering from a service failure. Once the topic comes up, invite her to be as frank as possible:
Julia: You people need to pay for what happened to me.
You: If this had happened to me, I would certainly want restitution too. Please tell me what would make this situation right for you.
Then listen to and validate each and every thing she asks for, even if it is outrageous. Your goal at this stage is not to rule on what you will do for her; it is for her to feel completely heard. For example, one good way to respond to unrealistic requests is the paraphrasing technique described in Chapter 3:
Julia: I want to go on tour with this band for the next year!
You: So you would enjoy hanging out and traveling with the band. That sounds like it would be a lot of fun!
Does this response sound strange, especially knowing that your company would not be in a position to comply with this request, and that the band itself would be unwilling to agree? Actually, it is one of the very best things you can say, because it both hears her and uses the language of an ally—and people ultimately tend to negotiate better with someone who is being a friend.
Ultimately, you will leave this conversation with an idea of how Julia and her friend are feeling and what will be needed to make them happy. In Chapter 6, we discussed how to frame problem solving in terms of what you can do for the customer’s interests. In addition to compensating her for her tickets and her travel expenses, consider things like:
Flying Julia and her friend to another stop on the concert tour
Giving her front row seats
Arranging for her to meet the band or get autographs
Inviting her to bring more of her friends or family members
Giving her valuable collectibles or souvenirs from the concert
When you are trying to right a very public wrong like this, you should be prepared to overcompensate for what happened—not only to make Julia and her friend feel better about what happened, but because you are perceived by the public as a wealthy corporation that wronged an innocent girl. And because the alternative may well be an expensive and publicly damaging lawsuit. Ideally, the best solution should make everyone involved feel like they came away a winner.
Super Bowl XLV: First Impressions Matter
In February 2011, as the NFL prepared to host Super Bowl XLV in Arlington, Texas, over twelve hundred fans learned at the last minute that the temporary seating sections for which they had tickets had not been completed in time. While many of these fans were seated elsewhere, four hundred were greeted with a terse form letter telling them they had no seats and would receive refunds of three times the face value of their tickets. Many of them ended up watching the game on television monitors inside a field-level hospitality area or on standing-room-only platforms.
Many of these fans reacted with outrage, particularly those who had spent thousands of dollars on airfare and hotels to travel with their families to the game. The NFL soon sweetened its offer to include a ticket to the next year’s Super Bowl, and then later the options of a trip to a future Super Bowl with airfare and hotel expenses, $5,000 cash, or reimbursement of more than $5,000 with documented expenses. This was not enough to placate all of the fans, and a class-action lawsuit against the NFL continues to work its way through the courts.
Respond to the Public
You have another set of “customers” to placate besides Julia and her friend: the public at large. Because this situation has played out in the media, you will need to make a public apology, and this response may become an important part of your company’s brand image.
To the untrained observer, corporate public relations can sometimes seem like a fun-house mirror that distorts reality: Problems become “issues,” an outrage is framed as an “inconvenience,” and a big mistake can turn into a “misunderstanding.” Even worse, PR statements are frequently wrapped in a thick layer of prose about how great the company is, even when it did not act great at all. They are often rife with the kinds of triggering catchphrases we recommended avoiding in Chapter 4.
Here you must take off your PR hat and become real, authentic, and contrite. Like the apology suggested for Julia, your public response must express regret, take full ownership of the situation, and document your response to it. If this response connects with people at a personal level, it will go a long way to limit the damage to your reputation.
CHAPTER 14
I’ll Be Suing You
“SUE IS ON LINE 1 FOR YOU,” your assistant says dryly, and you pick up the phone.
“Hello, Sue! How can I help you?” you say with a smile. “My name is Alice,” the other person responds tersely. “And I am calling to let you know that I am planning to sue you.”
Before you can say a word in response, she continues: “We purchased a pallet-load of your chairs for the conference room at our clinic, for people attending our educational programs. Since we are a weight-loss facility, many of our clients are morbidly obese. But we had no idea that so many of them would collapse under people when they sat on them.”
“That’s horrible!” you exclaim, and she cuts you off before you can say anything else. “Someone brought a video camera to one of our meetings and caught one of your chairs collapsing under a new client. The video has gone viral on YouTube, and people are ridiculing our business all over the Internet. Now the client is demanding that we cover her medical expenses. This whole incident is ruining our business, and it’s all your fault!”
Now it is finally your turn to speak. What do you say from here? In this chapter, we look at how you can communicate in a way that gives you your very best chance to stay out of the courtroom.
Do Not—Repeat, Do Not—Defend Yourself First
&nb
sp; The first thing to consider here is what not to say in response to this caller. Most people’s strongest instinct would lead them to commit a fatal flaw: defending themselves. As we discussed in Chapter 8, self-defense generally only makes angry customers angrier.
Suppose, for example, that you respond with something that is absolutely true in defense of your product. What would be wrong with a statement like this:
“Ma’am, our chairs do have a published weight limit of 280 pounds.”
Here is what would be wrong: It would have exactly the opposite effect that you intend. Let’s translate this statement into what customers hear: “I couldn’t care less that someone was injured on one of our chairs, or that your reputation is suffering as a result. We plan to hide behind every technicality we can, and you will probably have to sue us before you ever get our attention.” If you accomplish anything here, it would probably be to motivate the person to find a lawyer who will propose a hefty financial settlement for the customer’s future loss of business.
This is not to say that you should never defend yourself, just that that should come later in the process, as you negotiate a settlement (or, in the worst case, face off in court). In the meantime, trying to “educate” a customer that she shouldn’t sue is a fool’s errand. Instead, focus on hearing her complaint and positioning yourself as an ally: Empathize with her, ask good questions, and acknowledge her view of what happened, which is not the same as accepting blame.
The thought of a lawsuit is scary for most of us. The mere mention of the word brings up mental images of being in court, spending large amounts of money, and dealing with lawyers. Remember, though, that when someone is threatening to sue you but has not done so yet, it is a sign that she has a strong grievance and is giving you a chance to resolve it. This means that the right language can keep you both in dialogue and help move both of you toward a solution.
The Customer Service Survival Kit Page 12
