System failures

Opening the pod bay doors...

The past week was spent navigating and resolving various screw-ups by financial services providers. It took much time and profanity diligence on my part to rectify errors that were not of my making. If I had not put in the effort, the problems caused by the unfixed errors would have snowballed.

In both of my snafus, technology failed. And there was no easy path to accessing human backup. In fact, both organizations (financial institutions) seemed to make accessing human assistance as difficult as possible. It was like trying to communicate with a malfunctioning HAL 9000.

Mistakes happen, as we have covered previously. Many small business owners believe that making mistakes is a learning experience and a key to growth.

But what about institutional failures?

While studies have shown that technology - in general - creates jobs, many consumer-facing organizations do not manage the implementation of technologies in a customer friendly way. The frustration of having no easy or clear path to accessing human intervention is at the core of many consumer complaints. Getting caught in a loop that constantly redirects you to the very source of the problem is not a customer service best practice.

There is a right way and a wrong way to correct an error. Let’s take a refresher course.

The first step, just as in other-self help processes, is to admit there is a problem. Leaders of smaller organizations must be visible and communicative with their customers and stakeholders. “Own it or it will own you.”

Other steps involve training and cultural attunement:

• Listen to the customer (you must hire emotionally intelligent people.)

• Acknowledge the customer’s feelings. (No scripts, please, be authentic.)

• Apologize sincerely. (This takes both empathy and training.)

• Demonstrate responsibility. (Empower your front line people to fix the problem.)

• Outline the next steps and follow-through. (Even when the fix is not clear.)

In my two recent customer service nightmares, none of these best practices were employed by the front line service reps. Only when I escalated the issue, did better trained and more empowered staff come online.

According to Peter Drucker:

“It is the customer who determines what a business is. It is the customer alone whose willingness to pay for a good or for services converts economic resource into wealth…what the business thinks it produces is not of first importance.”

For smaller organizations excellent and repeatable customer service can be a differentiator and a leverageable advantage against larger competition. Likewise, positive word-of-mouth is the least expensive marketing there is and it should be a core objective in any business plan.

If not, you may find your customers fleeing in frustration and your organization lost in space.

Have a relaxing holiday.