Rip open the bag and pour yourself a handful of candy coated chocolates.
The shell doesn’t taste like anything though–it shatters with your first chomp, revealing the chocolate sweetness in the center.
When it gets down to it, we eat these for the experience–the crunch, the sweetness, the way they make our tummies and our minds a bit happier, after every morsel.
But, let’s leave the candy coating to the chocolates, shall we?
Candy coating in customer service just doesn’t do a darn thing. In fact, it can make things worse.
Your customers TRUST you. They put their trust in your company to provide them with a product or service that works.
If a problem occurs, do you candy coat your answers or do you give them the honest truth?
I encountered a situation recently in which the problem was partially on our company’s end but the only person that could fix it was on vacation for two weeks.
YIKES!
Did I tell this to the customer? Yup, you bet your M&Ms I did!
Did they respond negatively? Goodness gumdrops, no they didn’t.
So, what happened?
When I explained to the customer that we know the problem, we got the other company to fix it on their side and we are in process of fixing it on ours, they were still very anxious and frustrated. I then explained the situation in which the engineer who typically fixes these issues was on holiday as well as giving the customer options, which meant the possibility of leaving our company to find a service that works. I added that we’re still taking full ownership of this issue to work as hard as we can to resolve it. The customer was still anxious but also extremely appreciative. With limited resources, we then worked our tails off to fix this issue. And we did it, which made the customer ecstatic. But, what the customer appreciated the most was the honesty during the entire process.
Four Ways to Build Trust With Your Customer
- Take Ownership: Tell the customer what you plan to do to fix this issue, when you plan to follow up with them and give them your direct contact information (if you can). Make sure they know it’s YOU who will be their super hero.
- Be Honest: Tell the customer the truth. Plain and simple.
- Admission: Was this issue the fault of your company? Another company? Mistakes happen and one way for a customer to forgive with still keeping trust is for you to admit the issue.
- Explanation: Tell the situation to them in a language they’ll understand. If the issue is very technical and your customer is not, don’t go into too much technical detail–simplify and put it into a language your customer will comprehend. This will help avoid more frustration.
So, cut the candy coating and get real!
