How to change the conversation when solving customer service problems in your Small Business – Small Business Show 118

The Small Business show, episode number 118 for Wednesday, May 10, 2017. Greetings, folks, and welcome to. To the. I almost said the other podcast I do to the Small Business Show. I caught myself the show by, for and about small business owners, which means sometimes we do lots of different things and sometimes they get mixed up in our heads. That's right. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good. Clearly.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on. We could do the whole show on jumping from one task to the next. Not even within the same company. Company.

Right, right, right. Yeah, it's. Yeah, there's a lot of balancing to do there. And we have. We've talked about it in different ways, but yeah, that would be an interesting thing. Just because it's. So you need to be careful. It's that it's the same as anything, but, you know, you can always say, well, I can go do that over there, and that needs to be done. So I can let this sort of go on autopilot, you know, for whatever, however long. It could be 10 minutes or it could be 10 days or 10 weeks.

Yeah.

And. And that's a. That's a dangerous thing. It's.

It can be.

It can be, right? I mean.

Yes, it can.

You have to do it. That's the thing. So.

Yeah, and I have that same, you know, that thing where, like, you know, the. The shiny object thing that, you know, I constantly ask myself, okay, am I jumping into this new project because I don't want to deal with the headaches of the old, you know, the. The some other thing. Or. And. And it is. That's that being self aware is really important.

Self awareness is the key. My trick for that, to remind myself to be self aware is that I'm a big to do list guy, but very simple to do. List just items. That's it. I don't need a million things hanging off of each item and Gantt charts and all that for everything. Some things, yes, but for the most part, no. I just have a list and I move it around. But what I do is I look at that list and if I'm tempted to do something like you said, you know, that's new and shiny or whatever, I look back at the list and I say, what's the hardest thing on this list? Do that first. Then you can go do this other thing. And invariably that makes me more. More productive.

So, yeah, it's the carrot thing, right?

It's the carrot. Yeah. It's like we were talking about with Bob Levitis, right? I mean, he had that, that same kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, he did that 20 minute task thing. And I wish I could say I could, I'm using that now.

But I'm no jumping around a little. The only thing I do is the prioritize by the hardest thing. Start the day with the hardest thing that you can see on your horizon. And usually that makes you. Not only does it get the hard thing done, that is invariably never as difficult as you thought it was going to be and it doesn't take as much time as you thought it was going to take. It's, you know, just one of those things. But then you're in like, you know, I get in that sort of, you know, productivity high mode and you're just coasting and you're like, oh, great, well, I can do this and this and this. Oh, that was easy. All right, now I can do this and this and this. And suddenly you've actually been productive and all that.

So, yeah, I like it. It's cool. Hey, you know, I think you're the one that coined the phrase here on the show that, you know, every business is the customer service business, right?

Yeah, man.

In the customer service business. And, you know, I totally agree and you know, constantly working on that, on that part of, you know, my various businesses and ventures and I talk about all the time. You know, I always post, you know, we use a service called Help Scout that helps us manage communication with customers and they have some awesome, you know, blog posts and resources that I'm always posting up at the. In the small business support group. And you know, a couple of weeks ago I read a column called the Monday Note. It's by a couple of guys, one of them, Jean Louis. Gas A. Is it Gas A?

Gas A, that's correct.

And he's a former Apple guy. I'm not exactly sure what his position there was, but it was rather high up.

Well, he was the president of Apple France.

Yes.

For a while. And then he went on to Found.

B. Yeah, the B O S. Remember that?

I do. I ran BOS on my Mac, ironically enough, and I actually liked it. I mean, there were a lot of. Again, you know, this is like the annals of computer history. It was never going to be like the best thing, but it was one of the best things at the time.

Yeah, I remember that too. It was cool. It was awesome. So, you know, and we'll link to this article that he wrote. And it was all kind of based around that United Airlines, you know, huge failure, where they basically beat their customer senseless. And, you know, customer service, you just have to shake your head and be like, wow, man, you know, whatever happened, that's not the way to handle it.

That was a series of bad decisions, right? It wasn't one. One bad decision. It was a series of them.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, Jean Louise wrote this column, and he really focused on a very simple tactic that I realized, you know, I've been using for a long time and trying to train our customer service folks to use it. And especially in the last year with this, you know, social media business experiment that we launched last July, I've been doing it as well. And the concept is that when you talk to a customer about a problem, there are two ways to. There are two positions. Jean Louis calls them tokens. You know, two tokens on the table, and those are, it's nothing and it's awful. And his premise is that both tokens are always played, so whoever chooses first forces the other to grab the token that's left.

Oh, isn't that interesting?

Yeah. And basically, like an example, you know, the customer says there's something wrongs. Wrong. And oftentimes companies try to kind of play it down. Oh, you know, it's. It's probably nothing. Are you sure? Did you do this? What did you do to cause this problem? This kind of thing. And then the customer, because he's really. Then even more upset by your lack of engagement and empathy, they're the one that grabs the, you know, the high. It's awful. This is. What are you guys talking about? But if you go. If you flip it upside down when the customer mentions a problem and seeking help, no matter how small it may be, if you're the one that says, oh, no, this. That's unbelievable. I. You know, one for. Yeah, Yeah. I can't believe. How did this happen? Hey, we totally take responsibility. Let's work to get this resolved. Then the customer typically leans back. It's almost like you can hear a sigh of relief over the email or over the telephone, you know, and they go, oh, well, you know, hey, it's not that bad. Well, yes, let's work together to get it worked out.

Yeah.

And when I read this, I just thought, man, that is the best bit of customer service advice I think I've ever heard in my life. And it's so true. And I can give you example after example after example. And, you know, recently I've been using it even more and more with folks that, you know, we try to launch this emotional business, the social media thing with the, with handbags and you know, when there's a problem, even if it's very minor, people are really upset and I think even more so, they're ready for a fight.

Right? Oh, of course.

Right, yeah.

Because they have to. When someone, and this is true of all of us too, so it's easy to put yourself in their shoes. When there's a problem, you've decided it's not nothing by reporting it. Right. Or not by reporting it. But the indicator that the customer has decided it's not nothing is that they're reporting it to you. It could be like, yeah, you know what, the corner is scratched on the box, but the handbag is fine. You know, whatevs, I'm fine, I'm good. And we all go through that and it's, oh, it's not worth the hassle. Well, if they've reported it, it is worth the hassle to them. And you may think, well, this is ridiculous. I would never report such a thing. Okay, well they did.

That's right.

And so now you need to, you need to at least acknowledge that they see it the way they see it, regardless of how you see the situation, you know?

Yeah. Because you're dealing, you know, I mean, I can tell you from, if you're in any kind of e commerce business where you're shipping product, you know, the customer is already a little bit, oh, you know, what's. Is this going to be what they're selling? Is it going to show up on time?

Right.

You know, are they going to, you know, keep their promise of I bought this and I bought that. Especially if you're selling things that maybe aren't, you know, factory sealed or brand new, which is kind of my world that I live in.

Right.

That I perceive as a great value because maybe that iPad has a scratch on the back and we try to explain it but, but they get it and they're opening the box and this, you know, I always say the box is really the best or the worst sales person you have. Because in the e commerce business, because if you get something and you bought it and I don't care what you spent because if it's 50 bucks or 5,000 bucks, it's all different and it's all relative. Yeah. And you're expecting to get something that looks really good in a nice box and you get some, you know, beat up box that's been recycled you know, they're already looking at going, oh, wow, this just. I don't think this is going to go well. So they're continually kind of taking you down a notch in the trustworthy department. And then they open it up and if it's anything subjective and it doesn't meet their standards, which you have no idea of knowing what those standards are.

Yeah. You don't really get to define them. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. But what you have is you have an opportunity to, when they get it, to look at this box and say, oh, this is cool. Open it up and say, wow, this is packaged really nice.

Whoa.

There's a note inside here. And even if it's not a handwritten note because you can't scale it, but it's something maybe a little personal that you've spit out of a printer that you can automate, then you're constantly. Then they're building it back up. So what you want to try to do is increase that trustworthiness quota, if you will, to where, when they actually get to the product, they're like, oh, uh, oh, there's a problem. But, you know, I feel good about these guys. They're going to. Maybe they'll take care of me. Then they contact you. But if they've already had a few, oh, this is sketchy. They didn't send me a tracking number. It didn't show up on time. The box is all beat up. It wasn't packaged very well. These guys are total idiots. And they may not even contact you. They may file some claim with whatever marketplace you're selling on or charge their credit back or credit card or call, you know, contact PayPal. You never know.

But if you never know. That's right.

So when they do contact you, this concept of kind of over extenuating your empathy, if you will, it's not the best way to explain it, but, you.

Know, even overstating your empathy. Yeah.

And being dramatic about it, you know, if you're sending emails, you just need to get used to using exclamation points. I'm sorry. Because. And if you're not that demonstrative, think about it. You know, the. The text is so dry.

Right.

And you need to do little things like that to, you know, Dave, you've mentioned this before. Getting on the same side of the counter as the customer.

Yeah, that's right.

And doing it in. When you're on the. In an office or whatever with a customer, it's much easier.

It's not, it's. It's still difficult.

It's not easy, but it's easier.

Right.

But when you're sending an email.

Email.

And answering something, again, the customer is used to dealing with typically poor customer service. And when you can, you know, use an exclamation point. I mean, I hate to say this, but, you know, a smiley face or some kind of thing where totally.

You have to.

That's how you earn their trust. And you. You kind of stand out and different. And. And then you. You've diffused that situation, and that customer can really get on your side to where, like in Jean Louis example, the customer starts telling you, hey, it's not that bad. Okay, that's all right. It's all right. And I got to tell you, it really works. And I would highly recommend it. I think it's a fantastic concept. And he does it, and I just can't believe I've never read it so clearly like this. I love it.

Yeah, yeah. No, I. I like this piece. I mean, he. He talks about how if it got to his office and there was a problem with the computer, he would just offer to buy it back.

Yeah. And he would say, I love it, too. He's like, oh, and. And I need your address, so I know where to. It's like, oh, what do you, you know, what, do you have kids? Or. Oh, yeah, he would ask for kids. He goes, well, for the T shirts, you know, of course. Because I. I want to thank you because you brought this problem to our attention.

Right.

And it's such a great way to spin it. Yes, they screwed up and do it, but here he is acknowledging the problem, taking accountability for it, and thanking the customer, you know, for bringing it to their attention. All that costs you nothing.

Zero, right? That's right.

But the customer feels like, oh, wow, that's great. They're listening to me. And, you know, we have our. And we use. Like I said, we use Help Scout and all of our. And we use a bunch of canned responses, but we have so many. They really come across as personal. And then we also, you know, you modify them when you're responding to a customer, but all of them say, hey, thank you for letting us know about this. We're going to talk about it at our next customer service meeting so we can avoid this problem in the future. And it's just talking and telling the customer that, hey, this is really important to us. We want to know, you know, hear about this issue. And thanks for letting us know you're going help us. They're helping you to become A better company.

You've helped us. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. It's a great, you know, great way to do it. And, you know, and his, you know, his argument here is like, there's no downside to taking the. He calls it the it's awful position. You're super upset. There is no downside in. Even if, you know, you dig into it a little further and you've calmed everybody down and during your investigation of the issue, you find that the customer is totally wrong. Well, you can then kind of nudge it in that direction. Yeah, that's right. And you can explain it to them, oh, look, you're using this wrong. Or, oh, let me show you how to solve that problem.

Right.

And again, thanks for letting us know. So we can maybe include something in.

The packaging, extra documentation or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. And the customer feels important and, you know, you're not beating the heck out of them as you're dragging them off your airplane, you know, and so with.

Everybody filming you, oh, my gosh.

I mean, in this day and age, man, customer service is absolutely public, you know, and transparent because everybody's got a phone, everybody's got a camera, everybody has a social media account, and everybody wants to share, especially bad news, you know, and things like that.

Right, of course. Oh, yeah. When I first heard about that United thing, my first question, my wife was the one that told me about it, and I said, because I hadn't been on social media, I was like, doing work during the day or whatever, and she said, you hear about this? I'm like, I. Somebody mentioned something, I don't know, and she told me, I said, well, I assume we can go watch the video. I mean, it was just. Of course we can watch the video from every angle we want. It's all going to be right there.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's incredible. So I would definitely recommend if anybody listening, if you've used this tactic or if you have some, you know, comments, we would certainly love to. To hear your story. And, you know, you can send it to feedbackusinessshow.co. or you can jump over to the. Our small business support group at businessshow Co. Facebook.

Flash.

Facebook.

That's right.

Yeah. Be great to. To hear that story, man. It just works great.

Yeah, it is. It's the way. I really like that idea of thinking about it in terms of the tokens and if you have the chance to choose, which you sometimes do, you know, choosing that awful token. I like it. It's smart.

Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah. That's great.

Sometimes you don't. Well, sometimes what you have, if you've got somebody that's really just, like, raving and ranting, you have to pick. I mean, can you pick the. No. It's more awful than you think.

Well, you gotta. You know. Yeah. In those cases, you have to figure out how to get them calmed down before you can take that. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Y. For sure.

Yeah. Cool. All right, folks. Well, yeah, like you said, we will see you over in our Facebook group at businessshow Co. Facebook. And between now and then, make sure you are doing everything you can to live that charm life.

You got it. Thanks for listening, folks.