There’s an element of balance and thoughtfulness that has to be baked into your support and communication strategy. Otherwise, you can create a situation in which “helping” a customer can actually hurt them and you both.
Decision Hacking
You know that trick we had as kids, where we could ask both parents, separately, for something if the first one said no?
- Ask Dad for money.
- Dad says, “No way.”
- Go to Mom and ask for money, because she didn’t hear the conversation.
- Mom says, “Of course.”
It probably only took us a few times to catch onto that pattern. Eventually, it wouldn’t even bother us when Dad (poor guy) would say no.
In fact, we slowly learned to wait until our parents were apart to ask, increasing the likelihood of getting what we wanted.
We could say that was immature—and maybe it was. But it was also smart. We learned to act in the way that was most likely to get us the result we wanted, but it only worked so long as Mom and Dad didn’t plan on checking with one another before giving answers.
Setting Expectations
I’ve been taught how to do a little something like that with Comcast. Here’s how that goes:
- Try to do pretty much anything with Comcast support.
- The representative, though usually very nice, is totally powerless to do anything helpful.
- Post something mildly whiny on Twitter.
- Comcast social media people get in touch promptly and either fix my problem or give me a credit.
It only took me a few times to figure out the structure here. Now, I understand that it’s easier to be negative on Twitter in Comcast’s general direction than to push the unempowered support rep on the phone.
So, even though it’s really nice to get something from a company known for poor customer service, they’re actually teaching me to publicly complain about them.
And I will keep doing just that until it stops working. If it stops working, and the support reps continue to be unempowered, will I be mad?
..but I’ll eventually stop being mad, and adjust my expectations. It would be Comcast’s job to decide if my infinitesimal decrease in negativity towards them is worth my publicly available complaints every time there’s an issue.
So, let me ask you: are you training your customers to subvert your process? Think about it, because you might not realize it’s happening.
How often do you give priority to people complaining the loudest and the most publicly?
How often do you go beyond your support policy to be helpful, only to have it be abused later?
Are you trying to get users to read your documentation first, but personally answer 100% of the requests for information that’s already published?
The above-and-beyond, personal service of a small company can (and should) be a beautiful thing. Self-awareness is key in scaling that, though. And when you see you’ve trained your customers to subvert your process, you need to thoughtfully help them realign their expectations. You’ll get a struggle at first, but you’ll both be better off for it.