Defensiveness Destroys Customer Relationships

On a recent trip that was part of a group tour, one of the guests was extremely upset. It had taken nearly an hour for his family to be checked in at our hotel. This occurred after we had just completed an eight hour plane ride followed by a five hour bus trip.

While this same family was finally getting settled in their room, the tour bus departed without them. The entire group was on their way to attend a professional soccer game in Valencia. The tour guide never noticed that the family had been left behind. When we arrived at the stadium, several guests pointed out that this family was missing. The tour guide chose not to return to the hotel to retrieve them even though it was only 20 minutes away. He simply shrugged and stayed for the game.

Upon returning to the hotel, the guest angrily confronted the tour guide (who also happens to be the owner of the company). Rather than apologize and take ownership of his mistake, he became very defensive and the two had a heated argument. Many of the other guests witnessed the interaction and it set an underlying negative tone for the rest of the trip. Several impressions of the tour guide were formed during that single argument, none of them were flattering. Every time there was a miscommunication or a minor problem, it was underscored by the fact that many of the adults on the trip had decided they didn't like the tour guide.

When dealing with an angry customer, you have a variety of options on how you choose to respond. Among them are ignoring your customer, rolling your eyes, pretending you're listening while doing other things, actively listening or defending yourself. Of these options, the one that can do the most damage is taking a defensive posture. The minute you start defending yourself or your company, you have created a lose-lose situation. Your customer will never agree with your side of the issue and all you will have accomplished is escalating their anger.

When you argue with a customer and try to prove your point, the customer may think that you are questioning their honesty or integrity. You are also telling your customer that he or she has no right to be angry. But, most importantly, you are clearly demonstrating to the customer that you are unwilling to take ownership of service.

Within two hours of the argument that took place in our hotel lobby, every adult on the trip was fully aware of what occurred. The guest had vented his frustrations with the tour guide by telling everyone who would listen. The negative word-of-mouth spread like wildfire. For the rest of the trip (remember, this was the first day), people were looking for problems with the tour guide. Several days into the trip, the wife of the angry guest tried to diplomatically give some feedback to the tour guide's wife. There were several of us sitting together at dinner when she suggested ways on how the situation could have been handled differently.

To our surprise, the tour guide's wife blurted out in anger, "We're the experts here and I don't want to hear any more about this."

Thankfully, we all had a wonderful time in spite of these problems, but her comment pretty much sealed the deal on whether or not anyone on the trip will ever travel with that tour company again. I'm certain that the negative word-of-mouth will continue to circulate throughout our community, as well.

The negative aftermath could have been easily avoided if the tour guide had taken responsibility for the problems that occurred. He only needed to follow five simple steps to create a totally different outcome. If you are dealing with a customer who is angry, upset or concerned, the following steps will not only resolve the problem, but may actually increase customer loyalty.

1-Listen carefully to what your customer is telling you. Be sure that you are fully engaged in the conversation. Maintain eye contact and refrain from doing other tasks while the customer is talking.
2-Empathize with your customer. It does not matter who caused the problem. Simply say, "Thank you so much for bringing this problem to my attention."
3-Apologize even if it was not your fault. When expressed with sincerity, the words, "I'm sorry," can go a long way toward calming down a customer. An apology implies that you are willing to take ownership of the problem.
4-Resolve the problem, even if is not your job or it's the customer's fault. You do not need to prove to the customer that he or she did something wrong. Simply fix the situation.
5-Now is the time to correct the problem. The faster that a complaint is resolved, the more loyalty will actually increase.

Look at the five steps: Listen, Empathize, Apologize, Resolve and Now. They spell LEARN. That's because every time a customer complains, it provides us with an opportunity to learn how we can do a better job.
Debra Schmidt [newsletter@loyaltyleader.com]