In America, The Customer Is King
In America, the customer is always King. But what to do if the King is wrong? Some thoughts on handling complaints.
Most of FutureWare’s customers become so by first test driving one of our products and then purchasing a registration if they like it. We also offer a no questions asked money back guarantee even after a registration has been purchased. We haven’t had to do a refund to date, which suggests that customers like our products even after the test drive expires.
We don’t get complaints from these customers. We do get suggestions for improvements from time to time, and an occasional cry for help when they move the FutureWare program to a new PC that has problems of various sorts, most notably Vista of late, or more often a badly infected machine.
We do some contract work on occasion, all by referral and all on enterprise systems, with all but a few of them original development. Unless circumstances are most unusual, we stay away from maintenance work, referring that to other shops that seem to thrive in those situations.
Custom software development always entails a host of unspoken assumptions and hidden risks, and enterprise systems have a huge number of these. Perhaps the biggest of these is that the company doesn’t have an internally consistent and elucidated vision of what, exactly, needs to be done. Different internal organizations have different customs and cultures, and their separate assumptions often aren’t in the same universe as we know it. So the potential for misunderstandings and complaints is very high. We know that going in, and protect ourselves by protecting the customer first.
Things happen. Most people are reasonable, and open and frank discussions tend to resolve issues and eliminate complaints in almost every case.
Still, what to do when sweetness and light disappear? We’ve been lucky; that has only happened a couple of times since we started, but we have had a few more close encounters. So what do we do when calls to reasonableness don’t go anywhere?
Recently we met Nahid Casazza, whose blog on how to deal with a micro managing boss was very helpful in understanding the dynamics of complaints, and raising some issues that we had never thought about before. Customers are always the boss, something having to do with the Golden Rule (as in ‘He who has…’). And, not surprisingly, customers can use complaints as a control issue. This is an extension of haggling and bargaining. Some customers are more comfortable with this than others, but in our experience these tend to be a fairly small group, and these tendencies manifested themselves late in the game.
So what do we do if a customer really complains? We’ve come up with a three step process.
Step 1: Front End
First and foremost: Listen. To the man who signs the check. No one else. If he delegates then have him or a business-side representative present. Listening means keeping our mouth(s) shut.
After they’ve finished, ask if there’s anything else. If the customer can’t think of anything then suggest an item or two for confirmation.
Never get into a discussion on technical merits after the fact. There’ll always be someone smarter than we are, technology moves fast bringing new approaches that may not be applicable, warranted or workable, and techies never repeat never have a complete business picture.
Reduce the complaint to 25 words or less.
Step 2: Decision
If we’re wrong then admit it up front and accept the consequences. It happens. Better to ask forgiveness afterwards than permission at the beginning. May not always work but it sounds good. (Not really a Russian proverb, but a pearl of wisdom from Admiral Grace Hopper)
Examine the consequences and alternatives coldly, rationally and with a calendar and calculator at hand.
Step 3a: Resolution
Make changes as required, apportioning action items and activities that are reduced to writing and widely dissimulated.
Step 3b: Impasse
Be ready to walk. Really. Life’s too short, and sometimes some things aren’t meant to be.
Works for us, but then we don’t get too many complaints. Usually things were taken care of in Step 1, a couple went to Step 2, and only one went to the edge of Step 3b before reverting to Step 3a as we were collecting our calendar and calculator.