Don't Get Mad at the Money

As I've said before, customers who complain are a valuable opportunity for a company. Unfortunately, many times, when customers do complain, staff get upset or even angry. They take it personal because they don't realize what a great opportunity that complaint can be. It will give them an opportunity to evaluate and improve systems, products, staff, and services. You need to train your employees to accept complaints and learn from them. Even more, you need to train them to thank customers for complaining and giving them an opportunity to improve.

In my office, when a customer has a complaint that hasn't been handled to their satisfaction by another employee or supervisor, I always speak with that customer and make them happy if it is at all in my power to do so. What I usually find is that one of my employees has followed policy the way they were trained to do, but the situation warrants breaking policy to make the customer happy. Some policies are meant to be broken on a case-by-case basis. After all, policies are for staff - not for customers. I'm not talking about very important company policies like the ones that address following laws or that prevent workplace injuries. I'm just talking about "smaller" policies. For example, my doctor's office has a policy of needing to personally meet with patients who need certain forms filled out. Well, if that patient (customer) is going to be late getting back to work if she has to wait long for the doctor, maybe we can just interrupt the doctor and get the formed filled out right then. We have another policy of taking our last patient 30 minutes before we close. However, if a new patient were to come in 15 minutes before closing time, it's a good idea to help them out and get an account started so that we can see them again tomorrow. These are less important policies that are meant primarily to maintain order and give all associates a frame work for how to operate. They are not policies for customers, so customers don't need to care about them.

When a customer talks to me and I "over-rule" one of my employees, that person will sometimes be upset with me because I didn't "back them up". I just tell them that making customers happy is the top priority for all associates at all levels of the organization. I'm a brick wall when staff complain about customers. Customers = Money. So, I say, "Don't get mad at the money."

Train your staff to make customers happy and empower them to break policy on a case-by-case basis, to make customers happy. At least encourage them to talk to their supervisor about finding a solution that can make the customer happy. Complaints are a valuable opportunity for creating happy customers that refer other customers.

Don't get mad at the money. Instead, make customers happy so they will tell all of their friends about how you went above and beyond to take care of their needs.