David Friedman tells this humbling story:
I recall the day early in my career when I worked in Penn Station in NYC fixing public pay phones. A very large man – about 6’ 6” 250 lbs- called me over to where he was using the phone and told me the phone was broken. It didn’t seem broken and I told him so. Thereupon, he ripped the phone off the wall and broke the handset into two pieces. NOW THE PHONE WAS REALLY BROKEN!!
It’s easy to succumb to the temptation to get into a pissing contest with a customer, especially if the customer did something stupid like buy the wrong size or install a part backwards or call your service line without checking first to see if his unresponsive machine was even plugged in.
Here’s the question: What do you get by being right? It means you’ve “won.” But we’re supposed to be in relationship with our customers, not at war with them. Win the argument, lose the customer.
There is one thing the customer is always right about — he always knows whether he is happy or unhappy. And, whether his reaction to your response is pulling a phone out of the wall or just quietly walking down the street to another vendor, that action is the direct result of what he is right about. And it’s the customer’s behavior — not the final score of the Who’s Right War — that has the ultimate impact on your business.
My own humbling story
I had bought my first house. I was very proud of myself. And now I owned a lawn. (Still proud of myself) Next step: procure a lawn mower.
As it happened, one weekend morning, while I was driving around, acquainting myself with my new neighborhood, I spotted seven lawn mowers of various ages sitting in front of a house. They all had price tags on them. I chose a slightly-rusted but still respectable-looking one that looked just like the lawn mower I had pushed around my yard as a kid — at least I would know how to get it started — and I drove home, proudly. I had bought a lawn mower that I already knew how to use for only $35. What a smart shopper and home/lawn owner am I!
That afternoon, I pulled my brand new/old lawn mower to the very center of my backyard. I adjusted the height of the wheels, opened the choke, and cranked ‘er up. Like butter. How proud I was! I pushed the lawn mower around the perimeter of the yard, still proud, and, at almost the very place where I had begun, the lawn mower stopped dead. Uh oh. I pulled the starter thingee a few more times, getting a response something like, Brrrrpppppp. Well, now I’d flooded it.
So, I popped into the house, made myself a sandwich, and gave my lawn mower about a half hour before I went out and tried in again. Again, my new/old lawn mower started right up, just like a dream. I’m not only proud, but smart! I can’t believe I got this fabulous piece of machinery for only $35! Once around the yard again. And then: nothing. Again. Oh, well, at least now I know how to fix it. I cranked it a few more times, flooded it again, went back into the house and cleaned the bathroom. Came out in a half hour and tried it again. Brrrrpppppp. Brrrrpppppp. Brrrrpppppp.
I cranked it. I kicked it. I turned it upside and shook it a few times. I cranked it some more, gave it some more time. At the end of another 45 minutes, I wasn’t so proud anymore. I was mad. I can’t believe I paid $35 for this lousy lawn mower! I dragged it to my car, opened the trunk, and prepared to drive over to the house of the bastard that sold me this piece of crap machinery, give him a piece of my mind, and demand my money back!
I stormed up to the swindler’s front door and furiously informed him that he had sold me a piece of junk. He listened to me patiently, and said, “Well, I’m so sorry about this. Let’s take a look.” He lifted the lawn mower out of the back of my car — gently, so as not to scratch my car — and set it on the grass. While I stood there, arms folded, foot tapping, he studied the lawn mower carefully. Then he held up one finger, as if to say, “Don’t go away,” and he stepped into his garage. He came back with a gasoline can, filled up the mower’s gas tank, secured the lid, and put it back into my car.
“That ought to do it for you,” he said kindly. “Let me know if you have any more problems with it.” I’m very grateful to that guy, partly because he sold me a decent lawn mower for $35, but mostly for not glaring at me, arguing with me, heaving weary sighs, or otherwise rubbing my nose into what an idiot I was being. His goal was to ease my unhappiness, and he did. What he got out of it was a customer who then referred him to all of her lawn-owning friends.
Moral: If your customer thinks he’s unhappy, he is unhappy. Regardless of whatever else your customer is wrong about, he will always be right in his assessment of how he’s feeling about his situation.
Lesson: Is your irritated customer worth the trouble of keeping around? Your job, when confronted with an angry, unhappy customer, is to consider what your goal for your interaction is before you respond. Is it to be right, to win the argument, or is it to relieve your customer’s unhappiness with his situation? Whichever response you choose will have both short-term and long-term effects that range from losing a customer to securing one for life. You can choose, quite reasonably, to decide to kiss a troublesome customer goodbye — that’s the subject for another post — but if you do, it should be done consciously and thoughtfully, burning as few bridges as possible — rather than as the result of your being as out-of-control as your customer seems to be.
