Calm First, Customers Second

The next time anyone in your life has a complaint consider it a gift.  For every customer who does complain there are 26 other customers who will remain silent.  Ignoring or avoiding customer (or employee) feedback not only pushes the conversations underground, but also escalates them to a higher level each time they repeat (and therefore re-experience) their dissatisfaction.  The average “wronged” customer will tell 8-16 people about their experience, and it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one negative incident.[i]

The following dialogue includes the exact language from the district manager of the company I had an “Opportunity” with.  I had already invited him to my home to see the damage first hand and even recorded the “sales pitch” of the representative responsible for selling the product and instructing us in its use.  Instead of accepting responsibility and choosing to resolve the issue amicably he instead chose to insult me.  In the end “professional assistance” was required. I was forced to play the negotiation game with their attorneys and it cost them triple.  The sad part is they never learned the lesson.  My friend John Scherer likes to say “We all get the experiences, but only a few of us get the lessons.”

I hope these lessons will make a difference for you.

I had just finished writing a newsletter article titled , “The Most Dangerous Storms”, when I read the first line of Mr. X’s email.

Mr. Morgan

Do not harass me further.

I was, as they say, “without words”.  I had expected to read an apology, or at least an acknowledgement of our concerns, but instead I read further insults continued in line two.

Clearly you are new to business.

I could have interpreted this as a compliment to my youthful appearance, but somehow I don’t think that is how it was intended.

This correspondence came after a product which “Unnamed” Paper and Supply promoted to remove hard water stains, that they subsequently trained us to use, was responsible for destroying 46 windows.  It had been 45 days since we had a personal conversation with Mr. X who was the district manager for the region.  In our first meeting both he and his operations manager admitted to promoting this product for removing hard water stains on windows, so I wonder what he was thinking in attacking me in such a condescending way.

He was suffering from the same kind of “limbic storm” that I was experiencing in the moment I read his email.  In a 20 year study of criminal behavior, the number one reason given for acts of violence was the desire to gain respect.  We have a hard visceral response to being “dissed” that impacts every cell of our bodies.  When we feel attacked our logical reasoning prefrontal cortex hands over the reins to our primitive reptilian minds.  

In those moments we must take a step back and, instead of riding the chemically induced waves of emotion, learn to circumvent our physiologic tendency to respond in kind to insults, and instead learn the lesson contained in the experience.

The point that most of us seem to miss out on is that these lessons are not about understanding other people or situations but about understanding ourselves.

The first lesson for me was that despite all of the tens of thousands of hours I have spent learning how to understand and control my “temper”, nature has spent millions of years designing a survival mechanism that overrides my comparatively slow “thinking mind” in favor of the reflex response of my “feeling mind”.

Our feeling or reptilian minds are incredibly fast, but they are not particularly selective.  Anytime we feel threatened or attacked our limbic systems have the override capacity to flood every cell in our bodies with fight or flight hormones.   These chemical combatants narrow our field of vision and focus our attention for battle.   Antithetically this same chemistry reduces our ability to reason well, think creatively or see “the big picture”, which most likely contributes to the next line in his message.

This matter has been turned over to an insurance company at which time an employee like me that does not own the company would have no bearing on the case whatsoever.

I am sure this statement made complete sense when he wrote it.  And I have no doubt that I have made many, many similarly incomprehensible assertions in similar situations.

When we feel attacked we respond “without thinking” because we are literally incapable of clear thinking.  It is helpful to think back to your childhood and a simple playground “Teeter-Totter”.  When dis-stress levels are high our cognitive abilities are ALWAYS low.

Which brings me to the last line in his message.

“I have my own feelings what you are trying to get away with..” This is exactly the kind of response for which the word flabbergasted was intended.  Was he intimating that I had some masochistic desire to destroy my own windows and subject myself to the countless hours it has taken to pursue a resolution?

When responding to customer complaints consider ALL of the inconveniences associated with the perceived level of dis-service.

In our case:

1. Three visits to the company’s retail location.  One hour each round trip.
2. Meetings with the company’s representatives and three glass providers to evaluate, measure, and estimate the cost of repair.  3 hrs.
3. Time for glass providers to remove, template and replace custom windows for accurate replacement.  3 hrs
4. Time to uninstall and reinstall all window coverings.  4 hrs
5. Time to remove and return all office equipment adjacent to 7 office windows.  2 hrs
6. Time during which our offices will be disrupted for window installation.  Estimate by Viewpoint:  45 hours/2 people, 22.5 hours each.

Total 24 hours…Three full work days wasted

Lastly and most importantly, all of the time and emotional toll to have to fight for what is right has been immeasurable.  In a meta-analysis of 208 stress-related studies, researchers found that “Above all other stresses, it’s the feeling of being personally criticized that appears to take the greatest toll on our bodies and on our ability to think clearly.”

Stress has been shown to be a major contributor to everything from cardiovascular disease, psychological disorders, suicide, cancer and impaired immune function but I found it difficult to a improved when the stress is relieved.

In a study by the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company on the effects of stress prevention programs in hospital settings, twenty two hospitals that implemented stress prevention activities experienced a 70% reduction in malpractice claims.  In another the frequency of medication errors declined by 50%.[ii]

The last lesson in this story is a reminder of one of the most powerful healing tools we posses, the ability to reframe ANY situation.  Reframing is the process of choosing the context (frame) in which we view an experience.  Reframing can be an effective tool for releasing ourselves from the self limiting beliefs from our distant past or finding the hidden lessons in our daily experiences.  Reframing is what Peter Senge has described as a “Master Skill” because in its attainment we improve all other skills.

The next time you find yourself overwhelmed by anger or drowning in discontent, look for the lessons contained in the experience.  Everything in life happens to teach us something about ourselves.  Ignoring the lessons does not make them any less valid but only makes the learning more expensive each time we are required to “retake the class”.  When I first read the email I have dissected here I was upset.  Or more accurately I had chosen to upset myself.    Today I am excited about what I have learned.  I was reminded that I have the ability to move beyond what in the past would have been something I “chewed on” for weeks.  I am no longer angry at Mr. X; in fact I feel sorry for him, because despite the fact that he was forced to apologize I don’t think he learned any lessons.  He said he was sorry for being “apparently” unprofessional.  Apparently he is going to need another go round for this lesson to stick.

UPDATE:

It took me 14 months and an excellent attorney to resolve this situation and it cost inconsequential company three times what it would have cost if they had just accepted responsibility in the first place.

[ii] http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101/