Client Service: problems = opportunity

Many accountants who serve clients, whether they are your colleagues or an actual external customer, have experienced a time or two (or three or four) where something did not go right. You messed up. You fumbled.

Nice post from CPA Success illustrates the point: It's not just when things go "right" with clients but what happens when things go wrong? .... That is when you can build up two big things: TRUST and LOYALTY.

Trust because if a client KNOWs you take "mess-ups" very seriously, they know they will be taken care of to the best of your ability. They also know you care a lot when it happens. Loyalty is built when your "mess-up" becomes memorable .... IN THE WAY YOU RALLIED TO THEIR SIDE TO TAKE OWNERSHIP. Everyone is human. We all know we are not perfect, but we all expect certain fundamnetal things to happen when a vendor "messes up", but it rarely happens.

And the first place to start, and sometimes the hardest ....

Admit the mistake. Admit it. Come clean. Be blunt. Be serious. People "rarely" do this, but we all crave it.

By doing that, you will show them you take them (and your service to them) very seriously!

Responsiveness is part of your Brand

Are there any companies you deal with that are very unresponsive? They don't call you back, even when THEY said they would. They don't respond to inquiries fast or maybe not at all.

Maybe it is a cable company, a telephone company, or a shoe repair company.

So how do those actions (non-actions) affect your perception of that company? Probably ... pretty negatively. You are forming (or have already formed) a perception of their company and non-responsive is a word that is helping you to describe that company. Pretty soon you get to a horrible conclusion: "They don't care about me."

Now turn it around and think about your responsiveness ... YOUR Brand. What perception do people have about you? Is it what you want? Not sure what it is -- ASK THEM! Do they think "you care about them" based on your responsiveness?

It's the kitchen's fault!

You have probably been there....unfortunately many times. You are at a restaurant, your order gets messed up, and then you're eating one hour or more after you first arrived.

It is interesting to see how a "mistake" is handled in this scenario. Somebody messed up. In this case when it happened to me this past weekend, our waiter blames it on the kitchen. They LOST our order. Somehow it vanished, and the waiter (our hero) re-submitted it as fast as he could. He told us he had nothing to do with the problem. The manager at the store came over to our table and basically gave us 50% off our meal. The waiter then reminds us what the total WOULD have been had we paid full price. Translation: my tip should be based on the full price. I did not mess up, the kitchen did.

What has he done? He blamed someone else at his company. He did not take responsibility for the restaurant's mistake. Does it really matter who messed up? The customer starts to paint a negative picture of the restaurant in general. What would have been great .... the waiter taking full responsibility and showing a little more empathy for the CUSTOMER, not spending time blaming the kitchen!

Remember this when working in your teams. If you are truly a team then any mess-up as seen by outsiders is a team mess-up! Teach shared responsibility.

Taking charge - be a problem OWNER

I was at a dealership on Tuesday night trying to get our car fixed .... once again. Basically there is a glitch in the computer system that tells us we have low air in our tire basically all the time. I was mad this time because we DID have a low tire and the tire was almost flat. We had taken the car in before and they fixed the signal only to have it turn right back on the next day.

This time I pressed them a little bit on it. Now they told me it was an issue with the model in general. Their answer for me ... call the car company or send them a letter and they will then ensure it gets fixed. This had me more mad because I was wondering ... Don't you work for an authorized dealer of the same company?!

I am sure we have all been through this before ... someone at a company telling you they cannot get something resolved because it is either not their "department", they are not "authorized", or their company is set up where they are "just a contractor" or something like that.

All we want in these situations is COMFORT that our situation will be resolved. We want ownership of the problem. We do not want to know it is not "their problem" because we believe "our problem" is always their problem.

Remember this when dealing with your teams. Encourage "problem ownership". If you work with outside and/or inside "clients", empower younger staff to be problem owners when they arise at clients. They do not have to be "problem solvers"... maybe only someone else can do that. But the client wants to know someone will take charge for them and own the problem.