Customer Service is Not Life or Death (Until it Is)

I had just crawled into bed, exhausted after a long day. 

My four-month-old puppy tried to get comfortable in her crate next to me. She was still getting used to her new home and was full of pent-up energy. The torrential rain we'd experienced that day didn't help and she had worn me out.

Plop.

A drop of water landed on my shoulder. I looked up and saw a patch of ceiling above me was soaked through. Dragging myself out of bed, I got a ladder from the garage and climbed into the attic. 

There's not a lot space up there. Certainly not enough to walk around. I had to crawl over duct pipes and under beams to get to the right spot. When I got there, I found water dripping from the roof and pooling in the attic right above my bed.

Water leaking into the attic.

It was a frustrating moment. The roof was just four years old and still under warranty. Two year ago, I had noticed a leak in the same place after an unusually powerful rainstorm. The roofer came out and told me he had fixed it. Apparently not.

I sopped up the water and laid towels in the attic to absorb the continuous dripping. Then I crawled back into bed even more exhausted, after making a note to contact the roofer in the morning.

The next day, I sent an email to the roofer with pictures of the leak. The rain had stopped, so it was no longer an emergency. I figured he would have his hands full with similar requests and might take a day or so to get back to me.

He never did.

Service failures like this are almost never just one thing. It wasn’t just the leak that frustrated me:

  1. A new roof was leaking.

  2. The roofer told me he had fixed the roof, but it wasn’t.

  3. I was exhausted and trying to sleep when I noticed the leak again.

  4. I worried about damage to the ceiling (it turns out, there was).

And now the roofer wasn't returning my message.

I tried calling. A recording said the number was disconnected. I went to the website, but the website no longer existed. I did a web search of the company name and saw it had gone out of business.

Damn. There goes my warranty. This leak was about to become an even bigger problem because I would have to find another roofer and pay for the repair out of pocket. Part of the ceiling would need to be replaced as well, after water soaked through it.

Out of curiosity, I searched the roofer's license on the state licensing board website. Perhaps the license was still active and the roofer had moved or sold the business. Or maybe I could just track the guy down and give him a piece of my mind.

The search result was not what I expected: "This license was canceled on the death of the contractor."

I'm not sure what happened. He wasn't an old man. I imagined his family missed him, deprived of his presence earlier than expected. He had employees, too, and I imagine they all lost their jobs.

Suddenly, my leaky roof wasn't as important.

We all face frustrations as customers. Some of us lose patience and rant and rave as though it's a matter of life or death. It almost always isn't. This experience was a reminder.

I've worked with a couple of clients where service really was a life or death matter. The service they provided literally contributed to saving lives. So I've seen the difference between that and a leaky roof, an undercooked steak, or a flight delay. 

The experience made me reflect on a few things:

  • Customer service is not life or death, unless it really is, so act accordingly.

  • It’s important to treat others with empathy—you never know what they are experiencing.

  • Every job is a part of your legacy, so always do good work.

I'm still not happy. And I'm a bit conflicted between my empathy for the roofer's family, friends, and employees, and the knowledge that his legacy in my mind is a service failure. But I'll try to maintain perspective as the next storm rolls in.

The First Step to Fix Poor Customer Service

Note: This post originally appeared on LInkedIn.

I've talked to a lot of customer service leaders recently who want to improve customer service, but aren't sure where to start.

One of their biggest challenges is they struggle to articulate exactly what "improve" means. Here are some actual statements I've heard:

  • "We want to deliver world class customer service."

  • "We need to get back to the basics."

  • "Things need to get better around here."

The challenge with all of those statements is they aren't clearly defined. You'll struggle to take action if you can't be specific about what you want to do.

It's helpful to imagine you wanted to go on a road trip. You'd need two data points to plug into your GPS:

  1. Your destination

  2. Your current location

This calculation is exactly the same for improving customer service. You need to know what success looks like (your destination) and you must understand where you are now (your current location).

Here's how to find both.

bizgrowth.jpg

Define Success

This can be done in general terms through a customer service vision, which is a shared definition of outstanding service that points everyone in the same direction.

You'll need to get more specific if you want to improve. Start by thinking about what's concerning you most about your team's current customer service.

  • Is customer satisfaction too low?

  • Is service quality inconsistent?

  • Are you getting too many complaints?

  • Does it take too long to resolve issues?

  • Do customers have to frequently contact your team multiple times?

Whatever the issue, try to focus on something specific and clearly define what success would look like. That includes putting a specific measurement to it.

For example, perhaps you'd like your team's average customer satisfaction rating to be 85 percent on your customer service survey by the end of March. That's a specific, non-ambiguous destination.

You can't skip this step. If you aren't measuring customer service right now, there's no way to improve it. Just like your GPS will be confused if you ask it for directions but don't provide a destination. 

Find something important to your organization and start measuring it to establish a baseline.

 

Identify Your Current Location

Now you need to measure where you are now.

Let's say you want to achieve an 85 percent average on your customer service survey. You can find your current location by simply looking at your current average survey score. 

This step should be relatively simple if you've clearly established your destination. Did you skip that step? Then go back and try again! You need a destination to plan your route.

 

Determine the Gap

The last step is to determine the gap between your destination and your current location.

Let's say your goal is to increase first contact resolution to 95 percent. Your current first contact resolution rate is 82 percent. That makes your gap 13 percentage points.

It may be helpful to express your gap in a SMART goal statement. A SMART goal fits five criteria:

  • Specific

  • Measurable

  • Attainable

  • Relevant (to your customer service vision)

  • Time-Bound

Example: "Improve the average monthly first contact resolution rate from 82 percent to 95 percent by July 31, 2018."

You can use this SMART goal primer to help you. This short video can also provide more instructions on finding your customer service gap.

Looking for the next step? 

Watch the full Quick Fixes for Poor Customer Service course on LinkedIn Learning or download this Quick Fixes worksheet to find solutions for closing the gap and reaching your destination.

Prepare for Unexpected Surprises on Your Customer Journey

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Unusual situations can make or break customer experience.

I recently discovered three torn couch cushions at The Overlook, a vacation rental property my wife and I own. The cushions all belong to a patio furniture set we had purchased a year ago.

Replacing or repairing the cushions has been a difficult challenge so far.

  • There's no information on the furniture company's website about torn cushions.

  • A customer service rep told me I can't buy individual cushions.

  • The warranty department denied my claim to have the cushions fixed.

So now I have three torn couch cushions and no idea how to fix them. I've also developed some resentment toward a company I've bought a lot of furniture from.

Think about how your employees are equipped to handle unusual situations. Here are a few ways you can test that.

Two surprised and unhappy customers reacting to something they see on a computer.

Test for Rigid Channel Options

Try calling your company.

Chances are, you'll first be connected to a phone menu. Make a list of the options and then pull a random sample of 20 customer calls. Ask yourself how neatly each call fits those options.

The furniture company had just three options when I called:

  1. Place an order

  2. Check on an order

  3. Warranty information

It wasn't clear which option fit my situation. Should I place an order for new cushions? Did the company even sell individual cushions? Or is it possible the cushions could be repaired or replaced under warranty?

Some companies have a built-in menu for chat and web contact forms. You can test these with the same exercise you did for the phone channel. Pull a sample of 20 contacts and see how closely each one fits the menu options.

Many companies avoid menus entirely. Emails sent through a web contact form are routed to the the right person using behind-the-scenes technology. Phone, chat, and social media agents are trained on a wide range of issues and can pull in an expert colleague if needed.

 

Test for Rigid Procedures

It's often helpful to have clear procedures. 

This makes it easier to train employees, since how to do things is well documented. It can also make things more efficient when everyone is operating the same way.

But there's a danger when procedures are too rigid.

The warranty procedure at the furniture company was a great example. The procedure was I called in and spoke with an intake person. She took down the basics of my claim and emailed a link where I could upload photos of the damage. I asked her for additional ideas and options, but she was unable to provide any information outside of the procedure.

The warranty team was supposed to reply within 3-5 business days, but they never did. When I escalated the issue to the social media team, all I got was a flat no. They denied my claim and plainly stated they weren't going to help.

I'm not upset that the warranty claim was denied. I'm upset that I still have three torn couch cushions and the company isn't helping me fix that issue.

Take a look at your top customer complaints. Chances are, there's a rigid procedure or an inflexible policy behind it. 

  • Are your employees empowered to react to unusual situations?

  • Do employees instinctively focus on a solution or defending the policy?

 

Take Action

You can learn a lot of examining your top customer complaints.

One client I worked with was the parking department for a university. Their biggest customer complaint was the process used to issue annual parking passes. It required people to come to the parking office on campus and wait in a long line.

The parking department redesigned this process around making it easy for customers. They set up temporary stations around campus so people could pick up their parking pass near the building where they worked. The annual parking pass quickly went from the biggest complaint to the biggest compliment.

In The Service Culture Handbook, one of the companies I profiled was Cars.com. Leaders consistently ask customer service agents for input on how to improve processes. Agents are asked to answer two questions when they submit their ideas:

  1. Why is this better for the customer?

  2. Why is this better for the customer care agent?

Ideas that are better for both the customer and the agent get the strongest consideration. The process also helps agents feel empowered to improve wonky processes for both themselves and the people they serve.

Why Service Leaders Need to Be Role Models

The exact words the restaurant manager used were, "I'm not arguing with you."

Funny, because arguing was exactly what he was doing. My wife and I were celebrating the wrap of filming for my latest training video at a nice steakhouse. Both of our first steaks were overdone and the manager had offered to prepare us new ones.

Sally's steak was prepared correctly the second time, but my replacement was very rare, even though I had ordered medium rare. I sent it back to the kitchen once more, but the steak still came back rare. 

I wasn't going to send it back a third time.

The manager checked on our table. He seemed frustrated with me that I wasn't happy and insinuated that I was being too picky. In our ensuing conversation, he revealed he had asked the kitchen to prepare my second steak rare because he didn't think I understood what medium rare really was.

"I'm not arguing with you," he said, "but your first steak was medium rare."

That statement cost him a customer. Taking my steak off the bill wasn't enough at this point to repair his rudeness.

The worst part was our server was handling the situation just fine until the manager stepped in. The manager was setting a poor example for his staff.

Two small wooden flags rest on a plate, one says "M.Rare" and the other reads "Rare."

The Impact of a Negative Role Model

Leaders set the tone through their actions. In this case, the manager did several things that sent the wrong message to his staff.

  • He undercut trust by intervening when our server was handling it fine.

  • He displayed rudeness by jumping into our conversation without first introducing himself.

  • He exhibited selfishness by putting my replacement steak in as rare without telling our server.

I asked a community of hospitality professionals on the I'm Your Server, Not Your Servant Facebook group to weigh in on their experience working in similar situations.

People generally shared that these types of experiences made them want to work someplace else. A few also suggested the drama and mistrust created by the manager was likely to continue well past our evening at the restaurant. Several also thought it might create tension between the servers and kitchen staff.

All of this came from the manager's poor reaction that unnecessarily escalated what should have been a minor situation.

We noticed a change in our service level after our interaction with the manager. Our server avoided our table as much as she brought us the check as soon as our meal was finished, as if she could not wait to be done with us. 

There was no final apology or a confirmation of any deductions from the check (my steak was removed). She didn't make an effort to resolve the situation on a high note by asking us to come back again. She simply processed our check and wordlessly dropped it back off at our table.

 

Positive Role Model Actions

There are many things you can do to be a positive role model.

The first thing you should do is model customer service skills when interacting with both customers and employees. Treat people exactly the way you want your employees to treat customers. Your team is looking to you for guidance and your actions will speak louder than words.

Positive role models also take the same training they require employees to take. This move brings three benefits:

  1. You'll have the same skills as your employees, so you can model them.

  2. Your presence sends the message that the training is important.

  3. You'll be better able to coach employees after the training.

Finally, it's critical to support your employees.

One of the worst things the restaurant manager did was undercut his server by stepping into the situation she was already handling and then blind-siding her by deliberately putting in my replacement steak at the wrong temperature.

Here's how I've seen other restaurant managers handle a similar situation.

They start by talking with the server off to the side to get the story and see if there's anything they need to do. Then they come to the table, introduce themselves, and confirm the server is rectifying the situation.

This action supports the server while still sending a positive message to the guests that the manager is monitoring the situation and is there to help. 

Work on these role model actions and you'll likely see higher levels of service from your employees in response.

Report: Poor Customer Service Costs US Businesses $75 billion

Broken promises. Defective products. Surly employees. The list of poor experiences we face as customers goes on.

A report from NewVoiceMedia estimates those service failures are costing companies in the United States $75 billion per year.

The company worked with research firm Opinion Matters to survey 2,002 consumers. Its objective was to learn what people do when they experience poor service and why. The results should be a wake-up call for businesses:

  • 67 percent have left a company due to poor service

  • 10 percent have switched 5 or more times in the past year

  • $430 is the average a business loses per lost customer

Losing a customer isn't the only consequence of poor service. A separate study revealed many other ways angry customers can hurt a company.

Here are two insights from the report along with what you should do about them.

Customer fuming over a terrible service experience.

Insight #1: Focus on Emotions

Think about the last time you used a vending machine and it cheated you. Perhaps it was a candy bar that got stuck on the rack. It hung there, as if to taunt you with nobody around to help fix it. 

We've all felt anger and frustration in those moments.

Customer service is about emotions. Yes, customers have rational needs like getting the candy bar they purchased or solving a billing issue. However, it's the emotions behind these experiences that will cause a customer to be loyal or jump ship.

NewVoiceMedia's report discovered that 86 percent of customers are likely to do business with a company again if they make a positive emotional connection with the person serving them. It could be a moment of friendly banter or an empathetic gesture to solve an issue.

Sadly, customers say that emotional connection happens just 30 percent of the time.

Smart companies train employees to read and respond to their customers' emotional cues. You can do this by having employees recall recent interactions or even watching videos of customer service scenarios.

  1. Try to identify the emotions the customer is expressing.

  2. Decide upon an appropriate way to respond.

  3. Practice those new techniques with real customers.

Here are some more ways you can make customer service more human.

 

Insight #2: Make Service Easy

The phone is still king when it comes to customers' preferred channel for solving issues quickly, with 48 percent indicating it is their top choice. 

That doesn't mean everything is perfect. Customers often find calling companies to be exceptionally frustrating. Here are the biggest challenges cited in the NewVoiceMedia report:

  • Talking to multiple agents.

  • Not being able to talk to a real person right away.

  • Being kept on hold.

My own study of customer complains on Twitter shows that 80 percent of complaints are an escalation. This means that customers tried to call, email, or contact the company via a different channel and were unable to get their issue resolved.

Companies make service too difficult.

Customer-focused companies constantly try to make things easy for their customers. In The Service Culture Handbook, I profiled Safelite AutoGlass for its strong service culture. One of the company's best practices is having a real person answer their phones so customers don't have to deal with annoying phone menus.

Another way you can make things easy is to analyze your survey data. The comments and ratings your customers provide often reveal clear pain points that can quickly be addressed to improve service. 

The best surveys allow customers to opt-in to a follow-up contact, so you can close the loop with upset customers. This gives you another chance to save their business. You can also learn more about what caused their issue so you can prevent future customers from experiencing the same thing.

 

Take Action to Improve Service!

Building a service culture starts with a customer service vision.

This is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that gets everyone on the same page. It gives employees purpose and meaning in their daily work, while also giving companies an internal benchmark to evaluate each service experience.

Once you have a vision in place, spend time looking at areas where that vision is difficult to execute:

  • Feedback from frontline employees

  • Customer service surveys

  • Online reviews and social media mentions

  • Contact volume by type and channel

This data can help you understand where service failures are happening so you can find the root causes and address them.

Customer-centric organizations constantly engage in continuously improving service, because they know the financial consequences of service failures.

How Their Service Failure Can Be Your Problem

Chances are, you've had a bad customer service week. One where it seems like you receive bad service everywhere you turn. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

Mine started recently when a company shipped me the wrong socks. I normally wouldn't think much of a shipping error. This one turned out to be just the tip of the service failure iceberg. 

That same week, I had to contact a local hardware store multiple times to find a missing part for a front door handle. Painters ruined several window screens on my home. A new microwave stopped working properly and required a service call, crushing my schedule between 8am and 12pm one day.

My patience began to wear thin as the week went on. It started taking more of an effort to be a level-headed, friendly customer as I tried to resolve each of these situations. 

It also made me realize something you may already know—an upset customer might not just be frustrated at your company's service failure.

An angry customer yells into the phone.

Bad Experiences Add Up

The common denominator for all my bad experiences was time.

Each service failure required time to resolve that I hadn't planned on spending. It's frustrating to feel as though your time is being wasted. This can lead to anxiety if you are already busy with multiple tight deadlines.

Service failures often get amplified by multiple failed attempts to fix an issue. 

For example, the company that manufactured my door handle didn't include an installation manual or parts list with the handle, so I knew a part was missing but couldn't tell exactly which one. The company's website didn't have the information and the support team was closed by the time I researched the issue.

Imagine your company makes socks and I'm your customer. I've just experienced that runaround with the hardware store. Suddenly, a small shipping error with a pair of socks doesn't feel small anymore. It feels like the straw that broke the camel's back. 

The reaction might be disproportionate to the error. Oh boy did I have to work hard not to let that happen, but imagine a customer who wasn't so conscientious about how they treated your employees?

Kaboom.

 

Their Service Failure, Your Problem

A couple of years ago, I unearthed some fascinating research about how customers react to customer service situations when they are already upset about something else.

Two problems can occur:

  • Customers are more judgmental.

  • Customers become less open to ideas.

Neither is a recipe for a good service outcome. Judgmental customers are more likely to nitpick small imperfections or imagine service issues. We often need customers to be open to ideas so we can solve their issue.

A healthy dose of empathy is required to help many of these customers. Empathy can help cool down those negative emotions and convince your customer that you're on their side.

The painting crew won the empathy award during my recent week of service failures. 

The foreman was sincerely apologetic about the window screens. He then showed me how the screens' advanced age made them bend and tear easily. (In other words, he empathized with me, even though the problem wasn't his crew's fault.) He also came up with a way to temporarily fix the screens so they would look good cosmetically until I could get them replaced.

I appreciated his efforts and started to feel a little better. His creative fix took an immediate problem and put it on the back burner. And that helped put the issue back into a more appropriate perspective.

 

Create a Competitive Advantage

The crew from Peek Brothers Painting stood out in a positive way during my very bad week of service failures. The empathy and extra effort from the foreman to help with the window screens helped. I also received several compliments from my neighbors about how courteous the crew was.

And, of course, the paint job was beautiful.

Imagine your customer service team is an empathy oasis in an angry desert. You might take the brunt of a customer's anger or frustration when they are experiencing multiple issues. You can also be their hero.

Here's one way to take action:

  1. Share this post with your team.

  2. Discuss times you experienced multiple service failures from different companies. 

  3. Think of ways you can make those customers feel better.

It often takes just one friendly, kind, and patient person to turn around a customer's perspective. Try to be that person with your upset customers. 

They'll appreciate your efforts and your company will suddenly stand out in a positive way.

The Surprising Consequence of Consumer Anger

Losing customers isn't the only thing to worry about when there's a service failure.

You've probably seen the typical angry customer studies. The numbers change, but the gist is X percent of customers will stop doing business with a company after a service failure. While not exactly an earth shattering discovery, these studies prove that good service is good for business.

But what happens to the angry customers who continue doing business with your company? There doesn't seem to be a lot of discussion or concern about this group.

That could be a mistake.

I recently discovered this study from Dr. Venessa Funches that reveals angry customers may continue doing business with your company, but they can still find other ways to hurt you.

Here's what you need to watch out for.

Angry customer fuming.

How Angry Customers Punish Companies

Funches gathered data from 732 people who were asked to recall a specific customer service situation that made them angry. The respondents were then asked what they did next.

As expected, a large portion stopped doing business with the company. In this study, it was 42 percent. The remaining 58 percent still did business with the company, but many changed their buying behavior (respondents could choose multiple options):

  • 35 percent reduced the amount of business they did

  • 25 percent stopped buying certain products or services

  • 17 percent stopped doing business with a particular location

Then there's the 25 percent of customers who said they continued doing business with a company in the same way because they felt they had to. You will see no change in buying behavior from these customers, though they may still find other ways to hurt you:

Here's what else angry customers do:

  • 70 percent spread negative word-of-mouth about the company

  • 60 percent complain to the company

Negative word of mouth includes a lot of things business leaders don't like to see:

  • Negative online reviews (Yelp, Google My Business, Trip Advisor, etc.)

  • Negative social media posts (hello viral tweet!)

  • Negative stories shared with friends

Notice that not all customers complain to the business. There are many reasons that angry customers don't complain, so it's never safe to assume that no complaints means all is well.

 

What You Can Do About It

Funches's study discovered that broken promises were the number one source of customer anger. If I'm a customer service leader, I start there and look for trends in service failures.

Many customer service departments react to one complaint at a time. For example, I recently bought a handleset for my front door. There was a part missing and, even worse, there was no instructional manual in the box to help identify exactly which part I needed. The company's website did not have an instruction manual for this particular door handle, either.

It took a lot of back-and-forth to finally identify the missing part.

The major failure is it's been two months and those support documents still aren't on the company's website. That means countless other customers have likely struggled through the installation process.

These types of issues are preventable. Smart customer service leaders do two things on a regular basis:

  • They look for icebergs that are subtle signs of bigger problems, such as the missing handleset instructions. 

  • They collect aggregate data on the top causes of service failures so those issues can be quickly addressed.

Another action step is to re-engage customers after a critical incident.

Years ago, I worked as a national account manager for a company that sold business uniforms. A customer called who was pretty upset about a mistake in an order she received. I apologized for the mistake and agreed to send out the corrected uniforms at no charge.

Many customer service professionals stop there. An even better move is to follow up again once the customer has had a chance to cool off. In my case, I called the customer right after her replacement order was scheduled to arrive. My last conversation was during a moment of misery, but this time I was talking to my customer during a moment of delight.

The replacement order had arrived safely and the customer was very happy with the outcome.

 

Take Action!

Customer-focused companies are constantly learning from angry customers. Try to find the source of what's causing their anger and fix it.

Another tactic is to try to prevent customer anger in the first place. This short video shares a technique called the Pre-Emptive Acknowledgement to help you do that.

Your Inventory Problem is Hurting Customers

It was a scene straight out of the movie, Office Space.

The Vice President of Customer Service called a meeting of directors, managers, and supervisors. He stood under a banner that read "One Call Resolution" and proclaimed that solving customers' issue on the first call would be our focus.

Just like in the movie, people listened silently though nobody really believed him. 

Cost savings was the motivation behind this initiative. Repeat calls cost money and the company was light on cash. The VP was getting pressure to cut costs.

Unfortunately, the initiative started and ended with that meeting. The "One Call Resolution" banner was the only tangible step taken to improve.

Meanwhile, the solution to the problem was literally sitting in the parking lot.

inventory.jpg

The Returns Mess

The One Call Resolution meeting happened in 1998.

I was a call center training supervisor at Chadwicks of Boston, a catalog company that primarily sold women's clothing. The number one reason for repeat calls was a customer checking the status of a return or exchange.

Customers would mail back an item expecting either a refund or a replacement item sent out in exchange. A couple of weeks would pass and they'd call to check the status.

Tracking packages was a lot more difficult back then. We didn't have handy websites that told us the precise location of a shipment. There were many times when the best a customer service agent could do was tell the customer we hadn't received it yet.

The truth was we probably had the customer's shipment on site. 

At any given time, we had a backlog of six weeks worth of unprocessed returns. These packages were in truck trailers parked at our warehouse, waiting for our warehouse returns staff to open them and record each return or exchange in our computer system.

The company's average return rate was 25 percent. I'll save you the math—a six week returns backlog meant 3 percent of the company's annual inventory was sitting in the parking lot, completely useless.

Put another way, that inventory was worth about $6 million.

 

Money Hiding in Plain Sight

The returns backlog was a known issue. So why wasn't it solved?

A lack of resources was frequently blamed. The issue was really more complicated than that. Customer service came out of one budget. The fulfillment center, which processed the returns, came out of another. 

The challenge was the fulfillment center was under the same pressure to cut costs that the customer service department faced. It's managers didn't want to invest in the extra staffing necessary to clear out the backlog.

The irony is clearing out that backlog would have freed up a lot of money. You've probably guessed how:

  1. Temporarily staffing up to clear the returns backlog would free up $6 million in inventory.

  2. Processing returns faster would reduce customer service calls by 10-20 percent. That's an estimated $1-2 million in additional savings.

  3. Faster returns would increase customer loyalty, which translates to revenue growth.

That extra cash would have helped improve customer service and reduced some of the cost pressure on the call center. 

Alas, it never happened. The cash crisis continued, customers defected in droves, and many people would up losing their jobs.

 

More Ways to Find Money

Inventory issues can plague businesses in many ways. Here are a few more examples.

Dead Space. Inventory takes up valuable warehouse space. Having too much on hand, especially products that don't sell fast, causes a business to over-invest in space or utilize the space it has inefficiently.

Product Confusion. There's a shop in my neighborhood that's full of every random trinket, knick-knack, and gift item imaginable. You'd never guess that the shop primarily provides small business services such as copying, shipping, and private mailboxes. All that extra inventory clutters the shop and makes it more difficult to sell the company's primary services, which ultimate hurts revenue.

Slow Movers. I once worked for a catalog company that sold collectables from the former Soviet Union. We carried some unique items, such as an actual cosmonaut space suit. The challenge was these one-off items were expensive and would often sit in our warehouse for years until we found a buyer. That extra inventory represented a significant investment that hampered the company when it tried to expand and ran into cashflow trouble.

Phantom Stock-outs. In her book, The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton shared how phantom stock-outs contributed to the demise of the once-popular Borders Bookstores. A phantom stock-out occurs when the inventory system shows and item is in stock, but it can't be physically located. 

This list can go on and on. 

If your company has physical inventory, I encourage you to look for ways that inventory may be hiding cash that could be used for something else.

Why My First Book Will Soon Be Hard to Find

I've kept some news under wraps for awhile. 

It concerns my first book, Service Failure. I didn't want to distract from the launch of my latest book, The Service Culture Handbook, so I've kept it quiet for a bit.

Now I'm ready to share.

Service Failure has gone out of print and I've reacquired the rights from the publisher, AMACOM. Frankly, I'm ecstatic! 

Here's what it means, why I'm so happy, and how this might benefit you.

 

What It Means

Out of print means that the publisher won't be printing any more copies of the book. AMACOM has also taken down the e-book from websites like Amazon's Kindle Store.

This means the only copies still available are new paperback copies that are still in inventory at retailers like Amazon plus used copies that are sold through various channels. You can also get the book on Audible.

Reacquiring the rights means I now own the rights to publish the book.

People don't realize this, but when you get a book deal like I did with a publisher, you sign over the rights to publish the book. This is the publisher's way of protecting their investment so you don't try to publish the same book somewhere else and introduce a competing product. In return, the publisher helps turn the manuscript into a finished product, secures distribution, and pays the author a royalty on sales.

Now that I own the rights, I can republish the book.

 

Why I'm Happy

AMACOM knowingly allowed Service Failure to become an interactive experience. 

The book was set to be released in November, 2012. Six weeks earlier, I received my advance shipment of author's copies and discovered a binding problem that caused the pages to fall out. 

AMACOM had the printer fix the issue and reprint the book, but the horse was already out of the barn. It had already shipped copies of the defective books to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Even worse, AMACOM refused to make any effort to get the defective books back and replace them. The official explanation was it was cost-prohibitive.

This put me in a difficult position.

My name was on the book. It was my reputation on the line. And, because AMACOM owned the publishing rights, there was very little I could do about it.

Fast forward to 2016, four years after the book was published, and Amazon was still fulfilling orders with defective books. In fact, the defect rate was increasing to as high as 50 percent!

I finally had the leverage I needed to take action. After a brief negotiation through my agent, AMACOM agreed to give back the book rights.

 

How This Can Benefit You

Now that the book is mine again, I get a do-over.

That means I can republish the book with some new research and updated examples. If you own a copy of Service Failure, I'm going to get you a copy of the new book when if and when it comes out. (Details to be worked out...)

I can also give the book a new title.

Service Failure has a negative connotation. It might appeal to an individual buyer, but it's not the kind of book you buy and hand out to your management team because that would send a poor message. That clearly hurt sales.

A new title will make the book much easier to share.

So I have a question for you now. The original title was: Service Failure: The Real Reasons Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It.

What do you think the new title should be?