The order matters: in customer service and life

Keynote Speaker Micah Solomon

It’s not just what you do that matters.  Sometimes the order in which you do things makes a critical difference. This is true in business, as it is in life.

One example from the world of customer service: When you encounter an upset customer, you can:

1 Apologize to a customer.

2 Hear her out at length.

3 Help her find a solution.

These tasks, in this order, work very, very well.  But, alternatively, you might:

1 Blurt out your proposed solution right away, rushing the customer to a resolution

…at which point,  any attempt to

2 Apologize and

3 Hear her out

will fall on deaf ears.

Both approaches include the same three ingredients.  But the results will be worlds apart.

Micah Solomon keynote speakerFrom Micah Solomon author, keynote speaker, consultant on customer service excellence, sales, branding, and transforming company cultures in our socially connected world.
 

See Micah in action — including video and free resources — at https://micahsolomon.com. Or, click here for your own free chapter  of Micah Solomon’s customer service bestseller,” Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization.”

 

1 thought on “The order matters: in customer service and life”

  1. Learning how to articulate a complaint is one thing, but the receptivity of any frontline staff to your complaint is often very variable because (often poorly paid frontline staff) are a common fallibility in maintaining service quality. I often think that the energy a customer is willing to expend articulating a complaint is often not reciprocated with the courtesy of actually listening and learning something useful from it.
    I suspect that the frontline staff, (who may often be bypassed for a manager to direct the complaint to) are not trained to engage in a systematic process of capturing customer feedback (good or bad) on behalf of service management.
    As value (or the perception of value) is co-created in a service, not paying attention to these person to person interactions by hiring good people-people and paying them adequately for their skills will inevitably lead to #servicefail (just look at the # on twitter for metrics of how many are recorded there)

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