Thats Exactly It!

Sometimes whilst discussing an ongoing and complex customer service issue it can be very easy to lose sight of the customer’s objective. The whole transaction can accumulate add-on service issues like callbacks missed, misinformation, and commitments not kept. The conversation can get stuck in these details, and both parties become frustrated without knowing quite why. This can happen especially when a staff member picks up the issue from someone else.

If you pick up a service issue like this, try on your first call with the customer to do this: speak the customer’s core issue in a way that they say back to you; “That’s exactly it” or “You’ve got it”. If the customer can hear you speak their concern in a way that shows you understand not just the issue but why it is an issue for them, you start to get the trust to sort out the mess.

If listening back to one of your own calls and you find that actually the deep issue did not come out, think about using the 3 Why’s. Find the point where you could ask the customer “Why does X matter?”, you may not get to the core issue with the first answer, but asking “Why does that matter” about their response will lead you to the point where you can reflect their issue and hear “That’s exactly it”

Manner And Attitude Is Always An Opinion

What is the most useful role for a staff member to take when they are handling a “manner and attitude” complaint? Consider the instance where there is no recorded call or the interaction was face to face between the customer and their declared persecutor. The important insight here is that when someone makes a complaint about how they were treated, it is an opinion—it is not a fact. Opinions are often however more powerful influences on people’s actions than facts, opinions matter. If someone declares that they feel they were treated badly, then they likely truly do experience that feeling. If you as the complaint handler suspect that in a similar circumstance you may feel differently—that is your opinion, not theirs.

The most useful stance here is to accept at face value that the opinion of the complainant is honestly held and to accept their right to hold it. If your opinion as the complaint handler aligns with the customer’s then say so, it is authentic and valuable to declare alignment where you find it. If your opinion, however, does not align with the customer’s, your best stance is curiosity. Accept the customer’s stance is honestly held and gather more information for further consideration by your institution. Telling the customer that their opinion is valuable for you and your institution can be authentically communicated and the customer’s novel opinion can be communicated to root-cause or a learning team.

Consider now the circumstance where you do have access to the recorded call of the interaction the complaint is about. Having listened to the call you are of the opinion that the customer has nothing to complain about. I suggest that you still follow the same course of action. Recognize that your opinion is exactly that and that the customer may still have an honestly held different opinion that is different. While it may be more difficult to do, recognizing that your job is to listen and to try to understand rather than evaluate and judge is the key insight here.

Validation Is A 2-Way Thing

In 2024, most people do not like to receive phone calls from numbers they do not recognize. Fraud is at an all-time high, and customers are very aware of this. Customers are on their guard, and they should be. This results in a high number of outbound calls being terminated early, increasing cost and damaging customer satisfaction.

How then should you prepare to call a customer whom you have not personally spoken to before?

Build the importance of mutual validation into your introductory story.

As part of your process, you likely already want to validate the customer you are calling. The twist I am suggesting is to expect them to want to validate you as well! In fact, it can be useful to make that point explicit. Let’s model a typical dialogue to show what I mean.

“Hi, I’m Cormac calling from PhoneCo. I’m a manager in the Complaints Team, and your complaint has been escalated to me. I hope it is okay with you that this call is being recorded for quality and training purposes.”

At this point, expect the customer to be both bored and on their guard. They have an active complaint, so they already have a problem with PhoneCo, and you are the face of the problem—if you are even from PhoneCo and not a fraudster. So try this new element before you do customer validation.

“You can see from the number I am calling from that I am based in Dublin. The number showing is a direct number to me if you need to call me back.”

At this stage, the customer is still likely suspicious—so continue as follows.

“Before we start, I would like to validate myself to you by giving you some details on your complaint that would not be available to a third party. We received your complaint by email last Tuesday at 10:07 pm, and the subject line read, ‘Your Disgraceful Service’. If it is okay with you, I would like to discuss that complaint.”

The objective here is to choose something that the customer realizes is secure information. Doing this will deliver two things: by validating yourself, it becomes more reasonable to ask the customer to validate themselves. Also, by taking mutual validation seriously, you communicate to the customer your authority as a senior member of PhoneCo. This will set you up to then ask,

“If I could ask you a few questions to complete mutual validation, then we can proceed to discuss your complaint.”

Since you have validated yourself first, your request for the customer to validate themselves seems reasonable and even sensible. It becomes an opportunity to build rapport rather than feel like a police check. The segue into the meat of the conversation then becomes much more natural and effective.

Expertise Might Not Be What You Think!

When developing as a service professional or a complaint handler, sometimes people get stuck with a less useful interpretation of what it is to be an “expert”. We often think of an expert as someone who knows everything, this can then also be carried over to knowing everything about the circumstances and nuances of a customer’s complaint even on the first conversation. On reflection, that doesn’t seem sensible, but it is surprisingly easy to get caught in this mindset.

When calling a customer for the first time about their complaint, it is important to “know that you don’t know”, and that not only is that ok, but that it is actually the stance that the customer will find most valuable. Take time at the beginning of the call to establish your role and how you position with regard to the customer. So for example if this is a complaint (but also for complex service calls), create some distance from the area the complaint is about, establish your role as owning the complaint – even say “escalated” to me. Then tell the customer you have read their complaint but you really need to hear it from them before you investigate. The customer may have explained their complaint a few times already and be a bit disgruntled at being asked to do it again – persevere. Experts do not offer their opinion or interpretation until their customer has told them the circumstances of their complaint and why they are persisting in complaining.

Expertise is about offering your knowledge to fill in their story, the customer only cares about what you know relative to their problem. Remember the old adage:

“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”