“You’re right, we were wrong”
Seth Godin shares some words to consider about owning up to mistakes with clients.
“This is the most difficult sentence for companies that stumble in doing effective customer service.
By effective, I mean customer service that pays for itself, that is a rational expense on the way to building a loyal brand following and generating positive word of mouth.
When someone in your organization says, “You’re right, we were wrong,” they’re not saying that you’re always wrong, or that you were completely wrong, or even that, in a court of law with a sympathetic jury, you would lose. It certainly doesn’t mean you didn’t try.
No, all you’re saying is that you made a promise or set an expectation and then failed to live up to it.
Owning that and saying it out loud does two things: it respects the customer and it allows you to make more promises in the future.
If it helps, you can remind yourself that this is investment in your ability to make a promise tomorrow.”
From our perspective, how you say these words and what you do after you say them is really what counts. Customers can be forgiving if you follow up a mistake with exceptional recovery efforts. What are you recovering from? The loss of trust and break in the relationship that needs to be rebuilt all over again. As Theresa always says, “Trust is built over time but destroyed in an instant.”
This week spend time reviewing how employees recover client relationships and trust when broken. Be sure everyone is comfortable saying these words and that you are convinced that each and every person in your organization knows what to do to ensure a dissatisfied customer is WOWED by your recovery efforts!
