Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Hardware Store Customer Service
Posted by: lain // Category: Failed Attempts at Looking Reputable, Whoops! // 9:50 am
Yesterday was one of the worst days I’ve had at the Wren’s Nest. We were scheduled to tell stories for about 80 children up in Buckhead, and nobody showed up.
Bogus.
I woke up yesterday morning with two emails in my inbox: (1) “Where is our storyteller?” and (2) “I missed my connecting flight and won’t be able to tell stories in the morning.” In other words, this is pretty much my worst nightmare.
Luckily, the winter before I took a job here, I worked at Aubuchon Hardware on the frozen tundra of northeastern Connecticut.
(Pretty sweet, huh?)
I learned a lot of things, but mostly I learned about what to do when you’re mixing paint and you put in too much red paint coloring and then you only find out after the customer has put some of the paint on his house.
Here’s what I do–
- Apologize (Sorry I messed up your paint.)
- Affirm (You have every right to be upset! Very few people want to live in a pink house, and I feel you, I really do.)
- Explain* (I must have put in too much red because I don’t really know what I’m doing, plus the guy who is supposed to do it just got fired and I’m filling in for him.)
- Apologize Again (Dude, I’m so sorry.)
Note: this is also helpful if you’re making keys and the key doesn’t work the first four times you do it.
Aside from giving the guy his money back, the best thing you can do–I think–is affirm the complaint. Even if you’re sleep-deprived, underpaid, and overworked, protesting is futile. Once you can affirm the complaint and empathize with the customer, you’ve got a small shot at regaining their trust.
Not only do you position yourself as someone who is on their team, but you’re also seen once again as a person and not the idiot who doesn’t know what’s going on.
Aside from that, I don’t know what to do, besides not dwelling on the past and ensuring it doesn’t happen again. Any other suggestions?
*Sometimes, if you do something really boneheaded, there’s no explanation necessary.
In this case, I thought an explanation was necessary because most of the circumstances were outside of my control. Being stranded in a different city at 11 pm is no fun, especially when you can’t find my cell phone number.
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Offer to take the storyteller back and visit each individual class at no charge? Let the feature story be about the biggest mistake you can make is not learning from it? Send rock candy?
I had some serious quiet time to ponder this further last night. I think you have taken the correct actions so far. Later this week, you should apologize again, but you should also be ready to present a few options to make it up them, here are some things I have come up with so far:
1) Arrange some tickets to this weekends story telling festival for the children affected. Not only does this help to redeem yourself, it could also could get quite a few people to the festival who wouldn’t otherwise go, or even be aware of said festival. It also serves to resolve this problem quickly, as the festival is only a few days away.
2) Arrange another story telling performance at the school, free of charge, maybe even bring two or three story tellers and give them the show of a lifetime.
I am sure there are other things you could do, but that is start. Coming to the table with both a follow up apology and a resolution (that is ready to be implemented), would show how sincere you are in making it up to them. The people affected should also appreciate that you have been working on a solution, that is much more effective than an apology alone.
Great call, Kirk.
I followed up with a phone call to the staff so far, and I’m planning on personally delivering some Wren’s Nest books and schwag over there tomorrow morning.
I’ll see if I can work out the storytelling festival thing this weekend–great idea–but no promises there. That might be harder to implement than one would think, but then again, maybe not.
Gifts are always nice, so taking the swag is a good idea. You know what else works well? A handwritten note. So few people get these anymore, that they work wonders. Shows you took time and care. Now since you are going there personally, may not be necessary in this case. But for future reference….
Deb–yes, I too am a believer in hand-written notes. We tend to kick it old school at the Wren’s Nest, and that’s one of the best ways to do it.
Also, I made my delivery. Things went well. I feel a lot better. Thanks to everyone with suggestions, on the blog or off!
[...] In general, Lain and I can handle the smaller fix-its in the Wren’s Nest. He worked in a hardware store once, and I have hands, so we make a pretty good team. [...]
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