Understanding the Iceberg Issue in Customer Service

A customer emailed me with an unusual problem.

My first instinct was to help him quickly and move on. But I paused and wondered if this could be an iceberg.

Icebergs are hidden customer service issues that cost you time, money, and customers. It's something customer service leaders don't talk about enough.

In this article, I'll explain the iceberg concept, share an example, and give you some practical steps find icebergs in your own organization.

What is a customer service iceberg?

A customer service iceberg is an issue that seems small on the surface, but is really a much bigger issue.

Icebergs can be hard to identify. You might only receive a complaint or two. In other cases, the problem seems easy to fix but reoccurs without you noticing.

This makes iceberg-hunting a critical skill in any customer-focused organization.


What do customer service icebergs look like?

Icebergs are typically issues that are unusual or hard to explain.

For example, a Customer Service Tip of the Week subscriber emailed me because he was having trouble subscribing.

The specific problem he described was something I hadn't seen before. Here's a video walk-through:

Icebergs can sometimes hide huge problems.

One customer service leader found a few errant lines of code created a billing problem that cost the company $50,000 per year.

A customer experience leader discovered confusing instructions were causing over $1 million worth of products to be returned every year just because customers couldn't figure out how to use them!

Yikes!

How can you find and fix icebergs?

Three steps can help you identify and fix icebergs before they get too big.

Step 1: Avoid Assumptions

It's tempting for customer service reps to focus on solving the issue for the customer they are assisting. You might assume the issue is now done.

Assumptions like that help icebergs avoid detection.

I know I was tempted to help the Customer Service Tip of the Week subscriber get subscribed and then move on to something else. The unusual nature of the problem made me pause and look closer.

Stay vigilant for unusual or unexplained issues. Look out for problems that theoretically can't happen, but somehow happen anyway.

Step 2: Root Cause It!

Search for the root cause of unusual or unexplained problems.

I'd never seen someone encounter a broken link in the confirmation email for my newsletter. It took some digging to find the problem came from a seldom-used form on my website.

Fixing the link took a couple of minutes.

I also discovered this wasn't an isolated incident. My newsletter data told me at least 24 other people had encountered the same problem. They just hadn't told me about it!

Step 3: Get Proactive

It's time to spring into service mode once you find and solve the root cause of the issue.

I helped my Customer Service Tip of the Week subscriber get squared away, and then made sure the other 24 people affected were subscribed as well.

You can't fix every iceberg. Some issues are outside of your control. When that happens, put a process in place to quickly help customers who encounter the problem.

My first book had a printing problem that caused the pages to fall out. The publisher reprinted the book, but many copies had already been distributed to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book sellers. This process was completely out of my control, but I still needed a proactive service plan to help customers who bought a defective book.

Conclusion

Don’t let customer service icebergs wreck havoc. Find and fix them as quickly as you can. Watch this short video for a recap of this post:

Three ways to predict and avoid service failures

Imagine you had a customer service crystal ball.

This crystal ball could magically predict service failures. It would give you just enough time to swoop into action and avoid disappointing customers.

While I don't have a crystal ball, I can share three proven techniques that do the same trick. Each of these techniques can help you predict when something will go wrong and give you just enough time to prevent it.

Isn't that what superheroes do? Yep, you're about to become a superhero.

Tip #1: Learn from experience

Make a list of the top reasons that customers get disappointed. Think about your experience with each item on the list. Based on your experience, when could you have known each thing was going to happen?

My car was scheduled to get detailed first thing on Monday morning. Paul Beard, the owner of Apple Polishing Systems, gave me a call on Sunday afternoon. There was rain in the forecast for Monday, and Paul wanted to give me the option of rescheduling the service.

Paul knew from experience that rain immediately took away the shine of a freshly detailed car. So he made a habit of checking the weather forecast and alerting customers when it was going to rain. This helped avoid a lot of disappointments!

What service failures can your experience help predict?

Tip #2: Follow the customer journey

Put yourself in your customers' shoes and follow their journey. Understanding the customer perspective can give you insight into exactly when and how things go wrong.

A textile rental company provided table cloths and napkins to restaurants and hotels. One common service failure occurred when clients made last-minute requests. A restaurant might ask for tablecloths and napkins in a specific color for a special event, but it wasn't a color the rental company normally carried.

Clients would be disappointed when the company couldn’t provide the requested color.

A closer look at the customer journey revealed an opportunity to avoid these service failures. Restaurants and hotels often book special events with their clients well in advance, and the color of the tablecloths and napkins is frequently specified in the event contract.

Those details aren't typically shared with operations until the last minute. It was operations that made the last-minute requests to the linen company.

Service failures could be predicted and avoided by talking to sales. A regular check-in with each restaurant or hotel's sales staff could generate a list of upcoming events and any specialty linens required, including colors and quantities. In most cases, the linen company would have plenty of time to prepare.

What service failures can you predict by following your customers' journey?

Tip #3: Monitor the customer experience

Track customer experience data in real-time to identify potential service failures and solve them before your customers are even aware of the problem.

TriMet is the public transportation system operator in Portland, Oregon. It has a command center that monitors its entire network in real time. The command center is staffed 24 hours per day with employees who keep an eye on the system's buses, light rail lines, and trains to ensure they're running on time and to detect problems as quickly as they happen.

I profiled TriMet in my book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience. Here's an excerpt:

Employees in the Operations Command Center spring into action when an issue is detected and there's a danger that a bus or train might be delayed. They share alerts about accidents, construction, traffic congestion, and other problems. Command center employees work with bus and train operations to coordinate a solution to keep passengers moving while providing updated information on the status.

I was once traveling by light rail to the airport so I could catch a flight. An unexpected mechanical issue prevented the train from leaving a stop. Fortunately, TriMet was closely monitoring the situation and quickly dispatched a fleet of buses to move passengers to the next station where we could finish our journey on another train. Miraculously, our total delay was only 30 minutes.

How can you monitor your customer experience to identify problems before they become service failures?

Conclusion

All of these tips require a customer-focused mindset. This means looking beyond your tasks to understand what your customers are trying to accomplish. It’s your job to help them succeed.

Try to be proactive about identifying and solving issues and you'll avoid many service failures.

Three ways to immediately improve your customer experience

Today's customers are increasingly unhappy.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index has steadily declined for the past four years. By the end of 2021, it had reached its lowest point since 2005.

What's causing the decline?

A survey conducted by Toister Performance Solutions in April 2022 aimed to find out. Over 1,500 consumers across the United States were asked about their experiences with companies.

The results point to three ways that companies can immediately improve their customer experience.

#1 Listen to your customers

In an era of endless surveys, customer listening is severely lacking.

The survey found that 30 percent of Americans feel companies rarely understand their needs. Another 44 percent thought companies understand their needs just some of the time.

Think about the impact when a company hasn't listened to your needs as a customer:

  • Your favorite feature was removed from a product you loved.

  • A salesperson pushes a sale without listening to what you want.

  • You have to repeat your story three times when calling customer service.

Companies and employees who don’t listen can’t understand their customers. That creates unmet expectations, frustration, and an incentive for customers to try out the competition.

It seems dead simple, but customer listening is underrated. Here are some resources that can help you improve:


#2: Keep your promises

Companies promise the moon, but in the end you feel like you got mooned.

Service failures are rampant.

The survey found that 21 percent of Americans have been disappointed by a product or service that they purchased in the past week. This includes defective products, faulty services, and unmet expectations.

This often comes from an accountability gap between marketing, sales, and operations. Examples are everywhere:

  • False or misleading advertising

  • Salespeople who lie or exaggerate to get a sale

  • Defective products

  • Services that fall short of expectations

  • Employees who don't call you back

You can avoid these disappointments by keeping the promises you make to your customers. Here are some resources to help you:

#3: Recover from service failures

Problems are inevitable, but many companies fail to recover.

The survey discovered that 14 percent of Americans have experienced an unresolved service failure in the past week.

It's an insult to injury when a company breaks a promise and then fails to adequately fix it. These repeated service failures cost customers time, money, and aggravation.

  • You have to contact a company five times to fix a billing issue.

  • A product breaks while under warranty, but the company won't fix it.

  • An airline cancels your flight and leaves you stranded.

Service recovery is ultimately about restoring trust. You can earn your customer's repeat business if you can get them to trust in your ability to avoid another service failure in the future.

Here are some resources that can help:

Conclusion

There's a reason the basics never go out of style. That's why I'm advising my clients to do a few things really, really well:

  1. Promise: Win customers by promising to solve their problems

  2. Action: Earn trust by taking decisive action to keep your promises

  3. Recovery: Restore trust with a flawless recovery in the event of a service failure

You can get a step-by-step guide for implementing these concepts in The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

One overlooked customer escalation you need to improve

What comes to mind when you think of a customer service escalation?

  • Is it an angry customer demanding to speak to a supervisor?

  • Perhaps it's Tier 1 support transferring a customer to Tier 2?

  • Maybe a big issue requires another department to get involved?

There's no shortage of those types of escalations this time of year, but there's one escalation that's often overlooked: the escalation from self-service to human-service.

That escalation is often clunky, frustrating, or even painful for customers. Rather than solving problems, this escalation can get so badly bungled that customers are even angrier at the end.

Here's an example of one of those situations. I hope it's instructive.

Initial contact: web portal

How easy do you make it for customers to help themselves?

Simple, intuitive self-service options can prevent a lot of escalations. Most customers are happy to solve simple issues on their own if it's easy.

I logged into my wireless phone service account after unexpectedly receiving a $15 credit. While it's great to get money back, I suspected there might be a problem.

Unfortunately, billing information was difficult to find. The website was poorly organized and I couldn't find a transactional record of payments and credits.

This caused the first escalation.

First escalation: chatbot

The website offered more help via chat, so I tried it.

This is an escalation, since I'm going from self-help to a conversational channel. What I didn't realize was that "chat" really meant "chatbot."

Wedging a chatbot in between traditional self-service and a live person is almost always unnecessary friction. There are two things you should know about this:

  1. Customers feel better about self-service when they know a human is ready to help.

  2. Research shows customers really don't like chatbots.

My wireless provider probably went the chatbot route because it also sells chatbots. Unfortunately, my experience was a poor showcase:

A chatbot worth its salt would be able to answer the question directly. This one couldn't. I’m pretty sure it didn’t understand my question at all.

The next response was unhelpful, so I typed “human.” This prompted another unhelpful response. We danced around a few times before it finally connected me with a live agent.


Second escalation: live chat agent

Customers are understandably frustrated when their issue gets escalated a second time.

This puts the customer service agent in a difficult position. Adding too much friction to the escalation process makes customers more judgmental and less open to ideas.

The agent's job gets even harder when the company views this first live chat agent as an initial, Tier 1 contact. These agents often have little training and limited access to important systems. Their interactions are also highly scripted, which makes it more difficult to empathize with upset customers.

My wireless company didn't do itself any favors by identifying the employee as "Agent" in the chat rather than by name. It was a really dehumanizing experience.

It also didn’t make my previous chatbot conversation visible to the live agent, so we had to start over again.

To make matters worse, I had to wait several minutes between responses. This was likely because the agent was chatting with several other customers simultaneously.

I typed “Hello” a few times before getting another reply.

Now things really took a nosedive. I was on the second escalation, but the rep was clearly at a disadvantage:

  • They were dehumanized by being labeled "Agent."

  • Handling multiple chats at once made them slow to respond.

  • The rep didn't have access to the billing system needed to see the issue.

We went back-and-forth a few more times. Finally, the agent decided this issue needed to be escalated. Here's where the customer and company viewpoints really diverge.

Company perspective: This was the first escalation. The frontline chat agent couldn't solve the puzzle, so they escalated my issue to the "offline review team."

Customer perspective: This was the third escalation. Now I'm a really sad customer.

Conclusion

"Agent" assured me the offline review team would respond in 7-10 days. They never did.

It's a sad, but common tale of a company mishandling escalations at every turn. I received another $15 credit the following month. Once again, there was no explanation to be found.

Suddenly, I’m thinking about switching providers over a recurring $15 credit.

There are some companies out there that are really nailing escalations from self-service to live agent. They’re making it a pleasurable experience that improves loyalty rather than killing it.

Check out this post for some more examples of escalations, including a great example from Osprey.

How to keep customers informed about shipping delays

"The shipping container is stuck in customs."

That's the best update I could get from our buyer and it wasn't encouraging. We had been waiting for a replenishment order from our overseas supplier for weeks.

Backorders were piling up and customers were getting agitated at the wait. We had been getting a slew of angry phone calls and emails from customers who wanted to know why their order hadn’t arrived.

This might seem like a modern story, but it happened to me over 20 years ago.

I was managing a customer service team for a catalog company. Keeping customers informed about shipping delays was a real struggle. My employees were bearing the brunt of our customers' frustration, so it wasn't easy on them, either.

Today, customer service teams everywhere are experiencing similar supply chain challenges. Several Customer Service Tip of the Week subscribers have emailed me asking for advice.

Here are five tips I learned the hard way—through my own, difficult experience.

A large container ship is docked in port.

#1 Use the pre-emptive acknowledgement

The pre-emptive acknowledgement works by recognizing a situation where a customer is likely to get upset—such as a delay that will make their order take longer to arrive than expected.

You pre-empt the customer's anger by contacting them before they become aware of the issue, apologize for the problem, and offer a solution.

The biggest mistake I made 20 years ago was waiting for customers to check on the status of their order. By then, they were already frustrated. They had expected their order to arrive sooner, and when it hadn't, they took time out of their busy day to contact us.

I eventually learned to check inventory reports every day for inventory problems. As soon as we identified a delay, we launched an outbound campaign (phone, email, and mail) to inform customers.

The amazing thing was most customers were much less frustrated when we used the pre-emptive acknowledgement.

#2 Offer alternatives

Whenever possible, I like to pair the pre-emptive acknowledgement technique with options. Sometimes, customers are willing to be a little flexible to avoid a wait.

At the catalog company, we tried to identify alternatives before contacting a customer to inform them of a delay. Sometimes, we had a similar item or the same item in a different color that was immediately available.

Finding options gives you an opportunity to contact customers with modestly good news:

  • Is there a similar item or a different color available?

  • Can you source materials from a different supplier?

  • Are you able to expedite shipping for a modest fee?

Sometimes, customers are just happy to have a choice. Customers will be less frustrated with waiting for an order if they know they chose to wait longer over an alternative that was available sooner.

#3 Share the worst-case scenario

It can be difficult to predict exactly when a shipment will arrive. When that happens, you can avoid future frustrations by sharing the worst-case scenario.

For example, a friend of mine works for a company that sells fresh produce direct to consumers. It's hard to tell customers exactly when a crop will ripen and the farmer will harvest it. She is usually given a range of time, such as "between June 10 and July 7."

Unfortunately, customers tend to hear the best-case when we give people a range of time. So if my friend told them their order will arrive between June 10 and July 7, many customers will hear "June 10" and start to get anxious when June 10 comes and goes with no update.

Anxious customers create lots of contacts. It’s far better to give the worst-case scenario and say, “Your order will arrive by July 7” and then the customer will be pleasantly surprised if it arrives early.

There are a couple of caveats.

First, be sure that an early shipment won’t cause any problems. For instance, a customer might be traveling when an early shipment arrives. It’s best to keep customers update on early shipments, too.

Second, when creating a shipping estimate, don't forget to include the total time it takes to deliver something to a customer. At the catalog company, we'd often get updates on when a container ship with new merchandise would arrive in port, but it could take several more weeks for the shipment to get to the customer.

The language you use to communicate these delays to customers has a huge impact on how those delays will be received.

#4 Show your hustle

Customers often feel better about a problem when they realize you are working hard on their behalf to solve it.

When sharing a shipping delay, start with the bad news up front. Let customers know clearly and directly that their order is delayed.

Now you can soften the blow by offering alternatives (see tip #2) and telling customers what you are doing to solve the problem.

  • Are you sourcing new suppliers?

  • Have you paid for expedited delivery of critical components?

  • Are you adding more staff to be ready for a large shipment?

Anything you can do to demonstrate your hustle might make customers feel a little better. Sometimes, just providing frequent updates shows the customer you care.

#5 Commit to an update

One of the most frustrating things about supply chain disruptions is when the delay is out of our control. A supplier might promise a shipment within two weeks, but if they fail to deliver, we won't be able to keep our promises to our customers.

When you encounter a situation like this, a great strategy is to focus on what you can control. In this case, you can't commit to a specific deliver date, but you can commit to giving your customer an update.

I learned to use that technique at the catalogue company.

My team would give customers a date when we would contact them again, say 30 days out. We would then set a reminder in our customer service software to follow-up with the customer.

Customers appreciated hearing the updates. It was our chance to build trust by following up exactly when we said we would. This helped customers believe that we were on top of the issue and would keep them informed.

It also prevented a lot of angry calls.

Conclusion

The best solution to a shipping delay is to make the delay go away. Get the shipment in faster and the problem is solved.

But that's not always possible. When you can't make the shipment appear faster, your next best option is to retain customers' trust so they know you are working hard on their behalf and keeping them informed.

Ultimately, great customer experience is about keeping your promises. This means making sure you do what you say you’re going to do, such as deliver orders on time. When something does go wrong, the way you communicate goes a long way to retaining your customers’ trust.

You can learn more about making, and keeping, experience promises from The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

How to win back your customer's heart with an apology

"You shouldn't have to experience this."

The words just blurted out of my mouth. A customer had called, upset about receiving the wrong item. I saw past their anger and empathized with the inconvenience it was causing them.

"I'm really sorry about the mistake. We need to do better. I'm going to make sure we send you the correct item."

Then, something mysterious happened.

The customer instantly went from red to green. Their frustration evaporated and suddenly they were trying to comfort me!

"It's okay," the customer said. "These things happen. I really appreciate your help."

I had just discovered the magic of a real, heartfelt apology. And this wasn't a one-time fluke. The technique worked again and again. Customers calmed down and became more cooperative nearly every time I sincerely apologized.

Here's the science behind a great apology and how you can offer a great one, too.

The words “I am sorry” appear on a small chalk board.

Why do we apologize to customers?

The ultimate goal of an apology is to earn your customer's forgiveness. It's best used in situations where you made a mistake or your company broke a promise and you’re apologizing on behalf of your organization.

What if you or your company is clearly not at fault?

In those cases, a healthy dose of empathy is warranted, but not an apology. (See my guide to building your empathy super powers.)

However, beware of the murky gray area where the customer holds you or your company responsible, even if you don't believe you caused the issue.

It might be wise to seek forgiveness in those situations, too.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines forgiveness as the act of forgiving, which is "to cease to feel resentment against (an offender)."

In a study on forgiveness, authors Michael E. McCullough, Steven J. Sandage, and Everett L. Worthington Jr. take this further by suggesting three specific goals when seeking forgiveness.

Forgiveness occurs when the injured party is:

  1. Less motivated to retaliate.

  2. Less motivated to remain estranged.

  3. More motivated to reconcile.

All of these are incredibly important in customer service.

Angry customers find ways to retaliate against companies, even if they don't leave for a competitor. Here are a few examples:

  • Negative online reviews (Yelp, Google, etc.)

  • Negative social media posts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

  • Sharing negative stories with family and friends.

  • Spending less money.

  • Stop buying certain products or services.

Estranged customers leave your company and don't come back, while customers who are motivated to reconcile are willing to give your business another chance.

How can an apology lead to forgiveness?

Service failures can cause customers to experience negative emotions. Apologies help soothe negative feelings and make customers more open to conciliatory gestures.

Small issues, such as a minor delay, might not cause any tangible damage, but they can still hurt a customer's pride. An apology can help restore a customer's self-esteem. Strangely, thanking the customer can work even better.

Larger issues or repeated service failures can lead to something psychologists call emotional hijacking. When this occurs, a customer's strong negative emotions make it difficult for them to think clearly.

Emotional hijacking can create several challenges.

Apologies do a number of things to help a customer feel better:

  1. They convey empathy by validating the customer's negative emotions.

  2. They restore a customer's self-esteem by signaling remorse.

  3. They renew a customer's confidence when you take responsibility.

They also do one more thing that's essential to forgiveness.

In their forgiveness study, McCullough, Sandage, and Worthington Jr. found that apologies help the injured party feel empathy and compassion towards the person (or company) that wronged them.

That's exactly what happened when I apologized so profusely to a customer for the incorrect shipment. The apology caused them to empathize with me!

What makes a good apology?

Beverly Engel, author of The Power of Apology, suggests apologies contain three elements:

  1. Regret

  2. Responsibility

  3. Remedy

I accidentally stumbled upon that model when I apologized to the customer over a shipping error.

  • Regret: "You shouldn't have to experience this. I’m really sorry about the mistake."

  • Responsibility: "We need to do better."

  • Remedy: "I'm going to make sure we send you the correct item."

Apologies must also be sincere.

Customer service writing expert, Leslie O'Flahavan, cautions against making "nonpologies." These are insincere statements such as "We regret any inconvenience this may have caused."

O'Flahavan suggests being much more direct when apologizing. For example, you might tell a customer experiencing a billing issue, "I'm sorry you've had to spend time trying to resolve this problem."

Conclusion

Apologizing is an important skill for customer service professionals. We're there to help customers feel better when things go wrong and it's our job to seek forgiveness on behalf of the company we represent.

This short video shows you an example of what a good apology looks like in action.

Lessons from the Overlook: The importance of leverage

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a periodic update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

Finding a plumber for The Overlook is a struggle.

We've had a slight leak under the kitchen sink for two months. There's just one reliable plumber in town, and he's busy.

Electricians are equally scarce. It took six weeks for the one recommended electrician to fix a light. Another three months for him to complete the repair when the light still wasn't working.

Finding a reliable, competent handyperson is next to impossible. We’ve gone through several who aren’t reliable, aren’t competent, or both. It recently took three months to get a gate fixed.

These experiences prove customers don't always have the clout they think they'd do. The Overlook is in a remote mountain town where having just one option for a variety of services means you can't easily take your business somewhere else.

The uncomfortable reality is great customer service often requires leverage.

All this snow melted before we could get the light above the barn doors fixed.

All this snow melted before we could get the light above the barn doors fixed.

What is customer service leverage?

Leverage is power. In customer service, it's the power to set the terms of the relationship, such as when a service will be performed, how much it will cost, and whether you have to be nice.

In May 2021, grocers and restaurants struggled to get food because their suppliers faced labor shortages, scarce supplies, and soaring transportation costs. The largest customers, such as Walmart and Sysco, used their leverage to get more deliveries on-time.

Culturally, people assume the customer always has the power (at least in the United States). We live by the terribly misguided and historically inaccurate phrase, "The customer is always right."

The assumption behind this belief system is a customer can take their business to an eager competitor at any time if they aren't treated right. Tell that to the two HVAC repair companies near The Overlook. One of them is owned by a jerk who actively cheats customers, which keeps the other company too busy to respond quickly.

There's another issue with the idea that customers always have leverage: customers often interact with an employee, not the business owner.

An angry customer who threatens to never come back might be a gift to the offending employee. The employee rids themselves of a person they find annoying and unpleasant when an angry customer storms off. Meanwhile, the employee's pay won't be different and they won't suffer a change in job security (at least not in the short term).

How can leverage affect customer service?

Two broad trends are likely to happen when customers lack leverage. The first is a short-term impact, while the other is more long-term.

In the short-term, service suffers.

Customers have to pay more for less. Cable companies had an iron grip on our televisions for years, causing customers to pay steadily increasing fees.

Customers begrudgingly accept poor service. Many travelers have vowed never to fly a certain airline, until they realize that airline offers the only low-cost, direct flights to their destination.

There's also a downstream affect. Many cabins that compete with The Overlook have difficulty keeping up with their maintenance because qualified plumbers, electricians, and handypeople are so scarce. This creates a poor experience for their guests.

In the long-term, the market can change.

Customers alter their habits. People watch far less live television than they did just a few years ago, making streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Prime a viable alternative to traditional cable.

Competitors eventually enter the market. Southwest Airlines was created to challenge legacy carriers by offering low fares for convenient flights.

Customers might leave the market altogether. We've noticed an uptick in vacation rental cabins for sale in Idyllwild, in part because owners have struggled to keep up.

How can customers overcome a lack of leverage?

We've employed two strategies at The Overlook to overcome our lack of leverage. The first is to build relationships. You can get a lot more done when you're nice.

Normally, we'd get pretty upset if a plumber didn't show up. In this case, we continue to be polite and friendly, knowing the plumber will take care of the leak eventually. Because we're patient now, we also know from past experience that he'll come out right away if we had an emergency.

The other tactic we use is to be easy to do business with. We try to make make having us as a customer advantageous for service providers.

For example, we've started using a contractor to do small jobs, like fix our gate. He normally does much larger projects, such as home remodels, but he's willing to work with us because we're flexible.

Contractors often have small gaps in their workday while waiting for supplies to arrive at the job site or some other delay. A small job at The Overlook allows the contractor to keep his crew busy for a few hours on a day when he'd normally have to send people home early.

So having us as a customer creates an advantage for the contractor.

The lesson is you sometimes have to find your own leverage in a customer service relationship. For us, we’ve often had to put pride aside and re-focus on what matters most: ensuring our guests have a great experience.

Conclusion

Think about situations where suppliers and service providers have leverage over you or your business. What can you do to get a better result?

  • Will you pay more?

  • Are you willing to accept less?

  • Can you change your habits?

  • Can you build a better relationship?

  • What incentives can you give them?

Yes, it's frustrating when we don't get great service. Yet it's sometimes the reality. What we do next is up to us.

For more unexpected customer service lessons, check out my book, Getting Service Right: Overcoming the hidden obstacles to outstanding customer service.

Lessons From The Overlook: See the Big Picture

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a periodic update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

One small mistake caused the whole relationship to unravel.

My wife, Sally, and I had high hopes when we hired a company to install air conditioning at The Overlook. We were looking to find a reliable partner that could service the HVAC system going forward. Our property manager was interested in a referral to serve the more than 50 homes they managed.

The company's general manager made one small mistake when he wrote the estimate. And when that mistake began to unravel, he focused on the wrong details. It soon became a big problem.

This could have been prevented if the general manager had seen the big picture.

Ecobee thermostat running at The Overlook.

Why you should anticipate problems

Service failures can cause customers to actively consider pulling their business. It takes time and money to make things right. You are almost always better off preventing a problem than having to fix it.

The problem the general manager missed was a simple one.

The thermostat at The Overlook is located in the living room. The heat from the afternoon sun tricked the thermostat into thinking the house was hot, so the air conditioner kept running even though the rest of the house was cold.

He spent a lot of time walking the property when he created the estimate. Many other problems were anticipated. His thoroughness was one of the reasons his company won the business, despite being the most expensive bid.

The one mistake shouldn’t have been a big deal. But the problem got worse.

Installation day was a long one. The crew was hoping to get the system installed in one day, because the company was located an hour away. A second day of work would mean two hours of driving.

They were anxious to leave when they started to check the system. The desire to leave quickly overrode the desire to avoid a second trip.

They missed the problem with the thermostat. What they didn’t realize at the time was a second trip would now be inevitable. A trip that would inconvenience the company, and also inconvenience the customer.

Think about the time and effort you put into solving customer problems. How much could you save in time, money, and customer goodwill if those problems were prevented?

How focusing on the little picture can cost you

Getting stuck on a small detail can dramatically increase your costs. Tiny mistakes become huge service failures that drive customers to your competitors.

Sally and I noticed the problem with our AC system the next day. The living room was warm in the afternoon, so it kept running while the rest of the house was cool.

I called the general manager and talked through the issue. He recommended we install some temperature sensors in other rooms. The thermostat could then take an average of all the temperature readings throughout the house and use the average temperature to decide when to run.

We set a time the following Monday for him to come back and meet Sally at the cabin to install the sensors. That was two hours of driving for him, so an extra cost. The Overlook is a two-hour drive from our house, so Sally spent four hours driving plus the extra time on site—effectively the entire day.

He arrived at The Overlook without the sensors. 

They weren't in stock. Rather than re-scheduling the appointment for a time when he had the sensors on-hand, he decided to move forward with the meeting. Sally didn't find out until she was already at the cabin.

The general manager focused on the little picture—keeping the meeting—and lost sight of the fact that he would have to waste two hours and Sally would have to waste an entire day.

He agreed to order the sensors and come back to install them. We tried to handle that appointment remotely, but the technicians sent to do the work couldn't access our smart thermostat without one of us present. Another failure of anticipation.

The technicians just left the sensors at the cabin, which caused another problem. We had guests coming in a few days, and couldn't just leave equipment lying around. Another failure.

This required another visit for Sally. Another day wasted driving to the cabin and back. The general manager saw his profits whittling away, so he initially balked at meeting Sally at the cabin to help install the sensors. He tried to convince Sally that she could do it on her own in "five minutes." Another failure.

He finally relented and agreed to meet her at the cabin. It ended up taking him, an HVAC expert, two hours to get the system working properly, not the five minutes he had promised.

Time and time again, the general manager missed the big picture:

  • The thermostat is the key to the whole system.

  • We all wanted to minimize time-consuming trips to the cabin.

  • A good impression could lead to 50 or more new customers.

Focusing on the big picture can help you avoid problems and repeat problems. It can also help you understand the true value of making things right instead of worrying about small expenses.

Take a moment to think about the big picture from your customer's perspective. How can you help them achieve their goal?

How to focus on the big picture

Customer-focused companies start with a customer experience vision. This is a shared definition of an outstanding experience that gets everyone on the same page.

On an individual level, I recommend the Thank You Letter challenge. It's a powerful visualization exercise that helps you earn positive customer feedback.

Give yourself more time to see the big picture and anticipate problems by slowing down. It’s counterintuitive, but you can often serve customers faster when you go slow.

Think about our AC system. The general manager could have prevented three extra trips to our cabin for his company, plus two extra trips for us, if he had just taken a few minutes to note the location of the thermostat when he created the estimate.

Why a Slight Delay Can Prevent Service Failures

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.

It took 12 emails to get a resolution.

I was having a problem with my scheduling software, but the support rep couldn't replicate the issue. My guess was the problem was caused by the latest iPhone update. The rep insisted she was using the same version of iPhone operating software, so that couldn't be the reason.

It took several more emails until the rep finally checked her iPhone software and realized she was running an older version. This new information quickly led to a solution.

The rep's overconfidence had caused unnecessary friction.

The rep is not alone. Many employees provide the wrong answer without stopping to verify a simple detail, often with disastrous consequences.

Here's why it happens and what you can do about it.

A giant sticky note on a computer keyboard with the word “pause” written on it.

The Overconfidence Problem

In November of 2017, Belen Aldecosea was flying home to Florida. She called the airline ahead of time to verify her emotional support hamster, Pebbles, was allowed on the plane. The airline's customer service rep assured Aldecosea that Pebbles could fly.

That was wrong.

The airline's policy prohibited rodents from flying. The overconfident rep hadn't bothered to verify the policy and simply gave Aldecosea what they thought was the answer.

When she got to the airport, Aldecosea discovered Pebbles wasn't allowed to fly. The story ended tragically when she flushed Pebbles down the toilet in an airport restroom.

Controversy ensued. Aldecosea claimed an airline employee told her to do it. The airline denies it. The one area where there’s no disagreement is Aldecosea brought her hamster to the airport because an airline employee gave her the wrong answer.

There are smaller problems caused by employee overconfidence every day:

  • Problems take longer to solve

  • Customers receive inaccurate information

  • Employees create service failures

Why would an employee be overconfident?

There are many causes of employee overconfidence. This is different than laziness or apathy, where an employee simply doesn't care. An overconfident employee is wrong even though they firmly believe they're right.

I detailed some of the causes in my book, Getting Service Right, and in this blog post. Here's a summary:

Inexperience

A lack of experience can cause employees to overrate their abilities. Here's a short passage from Getting Service Right that explains it.

In a series of experiments, David Dunning and Justin Kruger discovered that the less someone knows about a topic, the more they tend to overrate their knowledge. Dunning and Kruger discovered that only people in the top quartile in terms of knowledge typically avoid overrating themselves.

I've run a similar experiment many times with consistent results. I ask a room full of customer service reps to rate the customer service they personally deliver on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being best. Next, I ask the reps to look around the room and assign a rating to the entire team. On average, the reps rate themselves a 4 while rating the team a 3. The math doesn't add up—and it shows that most reps believe they're better than their peers.

Experience

Too much experience can also cause overconfidence. When our brains spot a familiar pattern, we instinctively stop listening and fill in the blank. For example, how would you complete this sentence?

Singing in the ________.

There's a really good chance your brain instinctively came up with an answer without giving it very much thought. I'd wager that most people reading this will instantly fill in the blank with "rain," as in "singing in the rain."

No doubt, right?

Unfortunately, that’s not the answer I was looking for. It might be the correct answer most of the time, but the word I was thinking of was "shower." 

Now go back to customer service. It's easy to imagine a rep instinctively jumping to an answer that's right most of the time, but not always.

Ego

Some customer service reps simply want to be right.

Being absolutely confident in an answer makes them feel like an expert. Having to pause and look something up can feel like weakness when your ego is on the line.

Overcoming Overconfidence

The technique I like to use is pause and be sure.

I wish I had a catchier name for it, but the name describes exactly what you should do in any situation where you can't be verifiably confident in an answer.

  1. Pause

  2. Verify the answer to be sure.

Here's an example. 

A friend of mine has a poultry allergy. When we dine out, she always has to ask if what she ordered has any poultry in it.

Let's say my friend orders steak, potatoes, and glazed carrots. An overconfident server might look at the menu, see no mention of poultry, and confidently tell my friend the dish is poultry-free.

A server using the pause and be sure method would double check with the kitchen, where they might be surprised to discovered the glazed carrots are made with chicken broth. Not a good option for my friend with a poultry allergy.

Take Action

Customer-focused reps think about the consequences of being wrong.

  • An upset customer.

  • Wasted time.

  • Something worse?

Verifying the correct answer rarely takes an inordinate amount of time. Checking a recipe with the kitchen, searching a knowledge base article, or pausing to ask a supervisor all typically take just a moment.

That slight pause can save you a lot of time in the long run.

How Surveys Can Make Service Failures Worse

My local car dealership struggles with service.

On multiple occasions, I've arrived for an appointment only to learn a needed part didn't arrive as expected. That meant I had to drive home and come back another day.

The mechanic once badly scratched my car's front fender and didn't say anything—I noticed the damage just as I was getting in the car. The dealer fixed it, but my car was in the body shop for a few days.

A recent experience was the last straw.

I called to make a service appointment and asked how long it would take. The employee informed me it would be two hours, but when I arrived, the service advisor told me it would take four hours. 

That was time I didn't have.

You'd think the dealership would be interested in learning from mistakes and finding a way to keep my business.

In reality, what matters most to the dealer is my survey score. An employee has directly asked me to give a good rating on their survey after every one of these service failures.

Unfortunately, they aren't alone. Here's how surveys can make service failures worse. 

A customer giving a poor rating on a survey.

Does your survey focus on the wrong thing?

Surveys should focus on the experience itself, not just the customer service employees who are there to help when things go wrong.

For example, I recently bought an inflight internet pass to use while I was flying cross country. The internet was spotty the entire trip and my connection repeatedly dropped, so I emailed customer service to ask for a refund.

The customer service rep responded quickly and offered a credit for a future flight, which I accepted as a fair compromise.

I received a survey the next day. It asked me to evaluate the support employee, but not my experience using the company's product.

From a customer perspective, I had already shared all the feedback the company needs to know:

  • The service failure itself

  • My satisfaction with the resolution

We had ended the poor experience on a high note. Now the survey reminded me of the bad experience all over again. As Shep Hyken recently wrote, the survey shouldn’t be the last thing the customer remembers about you.

The day after the latest service failure at the dealership, I received this text from my service advisor:

Text message sent from service advisor at car dealership.

The message was clearly automated, but it still comes across as completely oblivious.

  • It’s an example of survey begging.

  • I already shared my feedback with the service advisor directly.

  • He knows it wasn't an exceptional service experience.

You can prevent this problem by establishing a clear purpose before creating a survey. Understand who you want to survey, why you want to survey them, and what you plan to do with that information.

This short video explains how to set a survey goal.

Should you even send a survey?

There are situations when a survey is a bad idea. For example, some companies send a survey after each customer service interaction. That could really infuriate a customer who has to contact support multiple times to resolve the same issue.

That text from my service advisor was another poor example. It re-hashed the memory of the service failure and made it even fresher in my mind.

Our ensuing text exchange tells me he still doesn't get it.

Text conversation with service advisor at car dealership.

The last thing I said to him when we spoke in person was, "I'm tired of you wasting my time. I'm taking my business to another dealer."

He still hasn't apologized. Now he's inviting me to come back in like nothing happened?!

The good news is many customer service survey platforms can be configured with rules that determine when to send a survey and when not to. For example, you can:

  • Limit the amount of surveys a customer is sent in a certain time period

  • Avoid sending multiple surveys for the same issue

  • Prevent surveys from being sent when they're not warranted

This last one is tricky.

Some companies have found that unscrupulous employees will prevent surveys from going out just to keep their average higher. I never received the promised survey from the dealership, which leads me to believe that’s what’s happening here. The service advisor anticipates a low score and might have prevented it from going out.

Does your survey inspire action?

It's frustrating for customers to give the same feedback over and over again. You need to use your surveys to identify issues and take action to fix them. Otherwise, you're just wasting your customers' time.

You probably see a lot of survey invitations at the bottom of receipts. A 2016 study from Interaction Metrics found that 68 percent those surveys “are total garbage.” The questions are so manipulative and the surveys so badly designed that they yield little useful information.

I once spoke with an executive who proudly announced her company had implemented a new survey. "What are you doing with the data?" I asked.

She explained that the survey scores were shared in a monthly executive meeting. There was a long pause, since I expected her to continue. No. That was it.

The survey was a waste of time in a number of ways:

  • It didn't have a comment field so customers could explain their ratings.

  • The company wasn't analyzing survey data to identify trends.

  • Nobody was taking any action to improve service.

My local dealership has experienced the same issue.

I’ve directly shared my concerns about service quality multiple times. The service advisor knows about it. Several of his colleagues do, too. I’ve talked with at least two of his bosses.

And yet, after every poor experience, someone awkwardly approaches me and asks me to be nice on the survey. Meanwhile, nothing gets better.

The sad part is the issues are fixable.

I called another dealership to book an appointment for the service my car still needed. The employee was careful to advise me that the appointment would take approximately four hours, and he gave me the option to wait, get a loaner car, or have Uber take me somewhere.

Take Action

Now is a good time to take a hard look at the surveys you offer. Ask yourself:

  • Why are we surveying our customers?

  • How are we using this data to improve the experience?

  • What aspects of these surveys could be annoying?

You can learn more about customer service surveys and get tools to create a great one on this resource page.