Steve Stone
Owner CEO
ShuBee®
Anyone that owns a business big or small can identify the difficulties you run into when handling an unhappy customer. My uncle was a plumber and he taught my father how to run a plumbing company. In return my father taught me. So, I’ve picked up 2 generations of good and bad habits.
I am going to share a bad habit that goes along with customers who are not happy with your service. There were many days as a young man I saw my father lay out the invoices on the desk and begin calling the customers that had a complaint. Dad would turn red in the face fighting with them. He would hang up the phone and say, “I am going to get my money, they are going to pay for the services provided to them”! Or even before my father could speak those words, the customer hung up on him.
When I started my business I did the same thing as my father, after all this is all I knew. I argued with the customer as my blood pressure raised higher. I felt as though I did the service requested of me and in return payment should be made for this service. Either the customer or I would hang up unhappy. I hated those days when I had a customer complaining about service or price. 90{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} of the time it was about price.
I thought I was winning because the customer paid, but I really didn’t win I lost.
Due to the customer firing me. I know that I lost that customer and there was little to nothing I could do to have them as a returning customer. Not only am I not going to get them back, I am also going to loose anybody that they speak to about my business. So I began thinking, I won that battle, but I truly lost the war.
I began thinking we all can relate to this.
There is a hardware store down from my home. I would go there to purchase things I needed due to the convenient location. A gentleman owned this hardware store and he had a very poor attitude. I can remember one day I had to return something and I began talking to him. He was very ugly towards me, which was no surprise. I explained to him that I had been coming in there for quite sometime now and every time I came in his attitude was rude and unwelcoming. Do you know what he said to me? “Well, don’t come in here”.
So, I passed his store a couple times a week and I kept going! I would drive an extra 5 miles to go to Lowes. This was all because I was not doing business with someone who did not provide exceptional customer service. I fired him.
It has been about 8 years since I decided to take my business elsewhere and fired the owner of the hardware store. To this day I still do not go to his store. I noticed fewer and fewer cars in his parking lot as I drove by. During that time a light bulb went off and I realized my customers were firing me because I was arguing with them. I began to ask myself how could I change my way of business to benefit the customer, but not hurt business at the same time.
I began networking with very successful companies. They told me that doing whatever you could to make a client happy will improve your business not hurt it. I was not sure I understood. Give their money back; give them all their money back. They explained if you are flat rating and you are refunding unhappy customers for example lets say you gave back $5,000 in refunds one year, so add $2 per billable hour. So that the people who pay you for services gives you your money back. So you didn’t loose anything and you kept a client. A win, win situation if you ask me!
I never thought about that. Do everything you can to make your customer happy. Remember customers are always right even if they are wrong. In a previous article “What are you leaving behind when dad gets home” I spoke about how a customers suggested refund amount is actually less than what you have in mind. Ask them what they think is a fair price. So, don’t be afraid to ask your customers what they think is a fair price. I started doing that and the response was incredible. We tracked the clients and more often than not they came back because we made sure and did whatever we could to make them happy.
Now, you will run in to certain customers you cannot please and you cannot afford to please. That is just life, unfortunately. If you track your customers and you have to provide a refund, the next time you provide service, you may ask yourself what do I do now? Do it again, give them their money back. One of the main keys in a successful business is doing everything to keep a customer happy. If you know this is a chronic issue with a customer then take note and the next time that customer calls your business explain that you are very busy but you do know a company to recommend. We all have competitors that do not provide the quality of service that we offer. When I owned my Plumbing/HVAC company I would recommend difficult customers to those subpar competitors. By referring your difficult clients to those companies, maybe the customer will see the value of your services.
Here are six reasons why customer service, both good and bad, is important when dealing with an unhappy customer:
- A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience.
- Around 13{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people.
- Negative interactions with a business are spread to twice as many people as positive ones.
- People are twice as likely to talk about bad customer service experiences than they are to talk about good experiences.
- 67{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} of people spend money after getting recommendations from their friends on online communities like Facebook and Twitter.
- Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell about 4-6 people about their experience.
*Source for word-of-mouth statistics: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer, McKinsey Quarterly, Internet Retailer. Read more at http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/6-reasons-great-customer-service-drives-powerful-word-mouth-marketing-results-0636835#s5JLjHf9XI5DVxjC.99
So there are 2 simple rules you want to always remember and follow when dealing with unhappy customers:
Rule #1 – satisfaction guaranteed no matter what
Rule #2 – satisfaction guaranteed no matter what