A Complaint is A Gift!
It is a Friday and the first real snowfall of the season in Upstate New York. The weather forecast of 2 inches of snow turned into 6. By one p.m. my feet are wet and I can see the reason, a crack in my boots. At the end of my sales calls, it is time to look for new boots. We have a long winter here and wet feet put a real damper on my enthusiasm. Cold and tired I entered the Army and Navy store.
In the shoe department I meet Christine and she started with a warm smile and sincere hello. She asked if she could help me. Then she started asking questions. What type of work am I in? How long am I usually on my feet during the day? What type of surfaces do I walk on? Am I indoors or outdoors and for how long? What am I looking for in a boot? What type of problems have I encountered with boots or shoes in the past? She used empathy stating how frustrating it must have been with wet feet all day. WOW! Five minutes before I was tired, wet and unhappy. Now I was interested and engaged. Christine, through the use of questions helped me design the solution to my problem. Within minutes she brought me several boots that would fit my criteria and a new pair of dry socks with which to try the boots on with. She suggested I walk around the store a few times to try them out. Twenty minutes after entering the store I had dry feet, new $125 boots and a smile.
On the following Friday, walking across the street to my office I became conscious of limping on the right foot. As I thought about it, I remembered limping the day before. On entering the office, I took the boot off and saw red around my ankle bone. This should not happen with new boots. Around 5pm I entered the same Army and Navy store without a smile and a sore right foot. Christine came up, smiled, and asked how I liked the boots. I took off the right boot and showed her my red ankle bone and explained how I had been limping the last two mornings. Christine stated how uncomfortable that must have been for me. She asked me to wait so she could find the store manager. I looked down at my scuffed up boots thinking that these could not be resold and how was this situation going to turn out? The store manager came over and apologized for the inconvenience. She told Christine to make me a happy customer. Christine offered me a replacement pair of boots or a store credit. I asked for the same style and tried those on. They seemed to fit well. I walked around the store for 15 minutes. She suggested I wear them indoors for a few evenings to make sure they fit well before wearing them outside. She thanked me for making her aware of the problem. I have been very happy with this second pair of boots. I am now a loyal customer for this Army and Navy store. Christine had taken what was a lemon and made it into lemonade.
What are the two business lessons for you?
#1 Engage your customers. Ask pertinent questions. Listen to what they say. The proper questions in the correct order will lead the customer to their own solution. How can they not invest in the solution to their problem, once they have already come up with the solution themselves?
#2 In life and in business things will break. Things will go wrong. Be prepared. Be sincere, thoughtful, and caring. Have a detailed plan for taking care of complaints. Take the customer’s side and come up with a solution to their problem. Make it easy for customers to do business with you. Thank customers for giving you a complaint because studies show that only 1 in 26 will tell you when they are unhappy. Research shows that it is 4-5 times more costly to find a new customer than in keeping an existing one. Look at the dollar value of that customer over their average life cycle. When you add up 5, 10, 15 years of sales to that customer what are they worth to you? By complaining, your customer is doing you a favor. They are giving you a chance to take care of the problem before they shop elsewhere. You can eliminate the competition by being a Christine.
“Don’t give back, JUST GIVE” quote from author Nido Qubien.
Thanks Christine for the business lessons and the happy feet.
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