Jacquelyn Lynn, Business Writer, Speaker

When You Have to Tell a Customer No

I was always taught that you never tell a customer no, and if the answer is no, you offer an alternative instead. So if the customer asks, "Does this come in red?" and it doesn't, your answer should be, "It comes in blue and green."

But sometimes the answer is no and there's no getting around it. Here's a way to make that work for you.

If you subscribe to the Flashpoints newsletter (which I produce) or my own e-mail list, you may have noticed that I use Constant Contact to send those publications out. I recently had a question about something I wanted to do with mailing list management. I couldn't find the answer online, so I submitted a help ticket. Within a few hours, I had a personal answer that essentially said, No, we're sorry, our system isn't set up to do that. However, we think it's a great idea, and we're sending it to our product development team to see if it's something we can implement in the future. (Not an exact quote, but that was the gist of it.)

What a great lesson! If a customer asks for something you simply can't provide, don't just say no and let it end there. use the question as a way to improve your products and services -- and let the customer know that's what you're doing.

I was already loyal to Constant Contact, but now I'm telling others about what a great company they are. Do you have customers who might do the same for you if you turn their questions into product improvements?

Make it Difficult for Your Customers to Leave

Some customers are loyal; others will leave you on a whim. What can you do to keep those customers who are buying from you because it’s convenient but would switch to a competitor for a slightly lower price or because you have service failure?

 

Consider making it so hard for them to leave that they won’t because it’s not worth the effort. It’s what banks do—their strategy to is get customers to have at least four different accounts (checking, savings, investment, consumer loan, mortgage loan, vehicle loan, safe deposit box, etc.). You might get mad at the bank or even find a better deal somewhere else, but when you think about moving your accounts, it’s just too much trouble—so you stay. Communication companies (phone companies, cable companies, etc.) are doing the same thing when they offer discounts if you bundle your service. If you have your cell phone, landline, television, and internet access all with the same company, you’re going to think long and hard about switching providers for any reason because it will be a huge hassle.

 

What can you do to make it difficult for customers to leave? Can you put together product and service packages? Offer loyalty programs that reward long-time customers? Discounts for repeat business?

 

Ideally, of course, your customers should be staying with you because they want to. But in the real world of business, that’s not how it always is. In addition to offering superior service and excellent products, it makes sense to set up barriers to leaving you so that customers have to think twice before they do. Do what you can do to make your customers want to stay and, at the same time, do what you can do to make it hard for them to leave.

 

AT&T U-Verse Service Failures: The Business Lesson

Yesterday I ranted about the incredibly poor customer service I had received from AT&T U-Verse and how for several weeks, I have been trying to upgrade my service, and U-Verse has been failing to deliver.

Here's the business lesson: Everyone in your organization who deals with customers must have ultimate authority to solve the problem. Don't just pay lip service to that authority, which is what AT&T U-Verse does.

Several people told me they were going to take care of the problem, but they couldn't. They couldn't because other AT&T U-Verse employees who are insulated from customer contact were simply saying no--or worse, saying "I don't know." Yesterday, for example, one representative, who began our conversation by telling me he could do "anything" a supervisor could do, ended it with telling me he had no idea when the system error would be corrected and I could expect the service to be installed. And he would have ended the call right then, except that I asked to speak to an actual supervisor.

I truly understand, as do most reasonable people, that mistakes happen, equipment failures happen, "stuff" happens--but when those things happen, someone who is actually dealing with the customer needs to have the authority to take care of it. In this case, someone should have said, "We'll get someone out there, even if it means bringing someone in on overtime to do it," and then had the authority to actually do that.

So that's the business lesson here: If the employees who affect customer service are going to be shielded from contact with the customers, the representatives who are dealing with the customers should have authority to tell those employees who are providing the actual service.

  

AT&T U-Verse: Great product, lousy customer service

When AT&T's U-Verse service became available in my neighborhood, I was one of the first on my block to sign up. The television, DVR , and internet service is significantly superior to our previous cable provider. So recently I decided to upgrade my service package and make some other enhancements to my phone service.

I've been trying for nearly three weeks, and AT&T U-Verse keeps canceling and/or rescheduling my installation appointment because of an internal service problem. The few times they've had the courtesy to call me, it's been calls from people with accents I couldn't understand based in overseas call centers who were clearly not well-trained in the company's products.

In the past two weeks, during the calls I have initiated, I have talked with at least 15 people at AT&T U-Verse, and while they have all been very nice and seem genuinely sorry that their company's service is so poor, they can't seem to do anything about it.  Today, when they didn't show up at the scheduled time, I spent two hours and 55 minutes on the phone, only to be told that they wouldn't be coming out until next week.

It appears that the people who have the power to take the steps to fix the problem are hiding behind a complex telephone system and refusing to actually talk to customers.

I'm trying to turn this situation into a lesson to share, but at this point, all I can manage to do is rant. But if you're considering a switch to U-Verse,  you might want to hold off until AT&T gets the bugs worked out of its system.

 

 

Go Daddy lets you opt-out of on-hold music

This morning I called Go Daddy tech support and had to wait for a few minutes before someone was available to help me. When the phone system gave me my estimated wait time, it then offered me this option to press 1 if I didn’t want to listen to music while I was on hold.

I’m sure Go Daddy isn’t the only company to offer this, but it was the first time I’ve come across it and I thought it was great. It let me leave my phone on speaker and work while I was waiting for the tech to come on the line without being distracted by music.

If your business phone plays on-hold music, consider asking your service provider about this option. Your callers will appreciate it.

Jacquelyn Lynn

Online Reputation Management: A Critical Business Strategy

What’s your company’s online reputation? When you put your company name into Google or another search engine, what comes up on the first and second pages of the search results?

 

Lately I’ve been working with crisis management expert Jonathan Bernstein (Bernstein Crisis Management) on an online reputation management plan for a mutual client, and our discussions included strategies for dealing with negative online comments.

 

Bernstein says the first thing a company has to do is to deal with whatever prompted the negative comments. It works this way: fix the problem, admit publicly that you had a problem but it’s corrected, commit to making sure it won’t be repeated, and tell the public that you’re moving forward. People understand and forgive mistakes as long as they’re not chronic and as long as you own up to them rather than making excuses for them.

 

This is a lesson a company I have written about needs to learn.

 

When you do a Google search on this company's name, posts from this blog pop up on the first page. And those posts are not flattering the company, because they talk about one of the company’s technicians stealing the item he had been sent to repair, and then the company said it wasn't  responsible for the criminal actions of its contractors. To make it worse, the company admitted it didn’t run a background check on that particularcontractors, who turned out to have a criminal record.

 

Recently I received an e-mail from the general manager of the company. He was supposedly fired last year after the incident that prompted me to first write about the company, but apparently that was either a lie or he was quickly re-hired. In any case, in an e-mail to me, he wrote: “I am asking for you to remove the story on your website. The story is inaccurate and quite old. Negative feedback can hurt, especially when the information is not true.”

 

My response was that he had given me no evidence that the information wasn’t true and the post was staying up, but that he was welcome to add a comment.

 

If you read the earlier posts on this issue (the first, Company says it is not responsible for criminal acts of its employees, and the follow-up, A company that is irresponsible, unethical, and unable to tell the truth), you’ll see what Orlando Sentinel consumer reporter Greg Dawson had to say about the general manager.

 

A more effective strategy would have been for the company to admit the mistake, make meaningful restitution to the customer, and explain truthfully what the company has done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The key word there is truthfully. This company is clearly still trying to trick people into trusting it.

 

If you want to clean up your online reputation, you first have to clean up your act.

 

Jacquelyn Lynn

Author, The Entrepreneur’s Almanac

L’Oreal: Customer Service the Wrong Way

Having told you about a company that does customer service right, here’s how not to respond to a customer comment: A few weeks ago, I bought L’Oreal eye shadow for the first time. I liked the product itself but found the container difficult to open. I went on L’Oreal’s website and told them. All I wanted was for L’Oreal to thank me for my input and perhaps tell me if there is a trick to getting the container open without having to use a tool to pry it.

No such luck.

Sergeant's Pet Care Products: Customer Service the Right Way

We can learn a lot about how to run our own companies from the companies we do business with. When a company does something that impresses you, consider how you can use that same strategy in your operation.

 

Here’s a customer service story that’s worth emulating: A while back, I tried a new flea and tick product from Sergeant’s Pet Care Products. The documentation cautioned against a number of side effects, such as lethargy and skin irritation, but didn’t say anything about the potential for agitation. So when I applied the product to my small poodle (a rescue dog of unknown age and history), I was surprised when she became extremely agitated and hyperactive, running all over the house, digging in her bed, and generally unable to stay still. After a bath and a bit of time, she was back to normal.

Great service from Dell

We just had a great customer service experience with Dell that's worth sharing.

Like most small business owners, my husband (who is also my business partner) and I are spending time this week getting our end-of-the-year business and financial ducks in a row. So we weren't pleased when the screen on his laptop went black over the weekend before Christmas.

On Sunday, Dec. 23, he got on the phone with Dell technical support. The phone tech (who was probably in India and spoke with an accent, but was easy to understand) walked him through some diagnostics and determined that the problem was the LCD. The computer is under warranty with on-site service, and the phone tech said we could expect to hear from a field tech in 1 to 3 business days. Not surprisingly, no one called on Dec. 24, and of course, Dec. 25 was a holiday.

The field tech called about 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 26, said he'd be by between 1:00 and 2:00 that afternoon and would call first. He called shortly after noon and arrived about 12:20 with the necessary part (which apparently had been shipped to him based on the service request we made on Sunday), and had the repair completed before 1:00 p.m. And because the machine is under warranty, there was no charge.

Kudos to Dell for great service, especially at a time of year when it would have been understandable to be far less customer-oriented.

Jackie

A company that is irresponsible, unethical, and unable to tell the truth

Several weeks ago, I told you about a company that took the position that it was not responsible for the criminal acts of its employees—in particular, that the company wasn’t responsible for the fact that an employee whose background it failed to check stole a piece of equipment from a customer.

 

When Greg Dawson reported that the company’s general manager who made that decision was no longer there, I considered a follow-up post to say that the company was at least doing something right. But before I could write it, Dawson provided another update in his Orlando Sentinel column (Dawson's columns about this are all available in the archives at www.orlandosentinel.com for a fee).

 

Here’s what he wrote:

Beware These [removed]

If you thought [removed], the [removed] repair company that failed to take responsibility for sending a criminal into the home of a Winter Springs woman, couldn't sink any lower -- think again, lower. Much lower.

In a followup column, I reported that [removed], the general manager who refused to replace the woman's stolen [equipment], no longer worked for the company -- presumably fired for displaying the ethical sense of a garden slug. I learned of his departure from a man who answered the phone when I called the company after the initial column. "[Removed] doesn't work here anymore," he said.

He was lying, as I discovered a few days later when I received a mocking e-mail from [removed] over the [removed] logo. There was no message, just "realize" in the subject line. To verify, I called [removed] and was told, in almost gleeful tones by a woman on the switchboard, that [removed] was "still very securely employed here."

So, this is what you get with [removed]: A liar on the switchboard and a slimy trail in the management office. "Realize."

I’d like to add something, but what else is there to say?

Jacquelyn Lynn