Trust depends on openness, respect and humanity. Yet we often resist taking that approach in our professional lives, even though we know it would be absurd to do anything else in our personal lives.
Suppose I’m talking on my mobile phone when my wife calls. I can’t speak with her at the moment – I’m on deadline – so I say to her: “All of my brain is busy right now, so please hold and I’ll be with you shortly. Your call is very important to me.”
I guarantee that my customer satisfaction scores at home would suffer.
But if that’s true, why not re-craft the waiting message in our call centres so that it’s more like what we’d say to our spouses? “We know it’s frustrating to wait on hold – but we’re swamped right now answering other calls. We’ll get to you as soon as we can – probably about [insert an accurate number] minutes. We’re sorry for making you wait.”
“My challenge to you: only speak like a human at work” by Daniel H Pink
Sean McCambridge
on 02 Aug 10It seems like there’s a real battle between being real (and becoming a fan-worthy brand) and getting sued. To say, “We’re sorry, we screwed up,” arguably opens the door to litigation. The lawyers will scream and whine. Whether legitimate or not, corporations will always err on the side of the perceived bottom line. Saying, “We apologize for any inconvenience,” carries a vagueness that doesn’t admit wrongdoing. Upper management has to consider whether it’s more expensive to lose a lawsuit or lose fans.
Ian Ragsdale
on 02 Aug 10Re: Sean McCambridge
Regarding your comment on the tension between speaking frankly and not getting sued, there was an interesting study done that came up during the health care debate. I can’t find the link right now, but I can summarize the findings. What they found is that even if admitting guilt might hurt your chances in the case of a lawsuit, a simple apology and admission of guilt drastically reduced the frequency of lawsuits. Imagine that – treating someone like a human being and apologizing nicely reduced peoples desire to seek recourse in other venues! It seems simple and obvious but I guess not to bean-counters or lawyers.
Sean McCambridge
on 02 Aug 10Hi, Ian. The article actually cited that study. Yeah, it’s much more about perception than reality. But I don’t expect facts to change people’s minds. I heard a story on NPR recently on a study that demonstrated that people who held a false belief, when confronted with contrary facts, actually held more firmly to their belief despite the evidence against it.
Michael
on 02 Aug 10Interesting finding, Sean. It would be very convenient to keep that in mind when debating. “They believe me even less now. I must have been right!” Talk about win-win.
Cormac
on 03 Aug 10“Sorry” is of course better than “we’re sorry for the inconvenience” if you screw up rarely. If, however, you screw up regularly, no vocabulary adjustment is going to mollify your customers.
This discussion is closed.