Service Is Sometimes Saying You’re Sorry
This is a column about being sorry. I never thought I’d tackle this subject in adult life. But it’s for adults, for business people. Consumers already know all about it.
What brought it on was a moment of epiphany in the post office--a revelation about the nature of service in the quintessential service business. It started at the stamp counter: “How much did you say?” I asked. “Read the screen,” said the clerk. I did, and paid.
Walking away, I began wondering whether 22 29-cent stamps were really $8.41, calculating that 10 were about $3, 20 would be $6, plus about 60 cents. Not exact but not $8.41.
Back I went: “I can’t quite figure out my bill.” She said, “Read your receipt.” We read it together. “The wrong button hit,” she said, counting out $2.03.
We looked at one another, one waiting, the other holding back. I broke first, and left.
The U.S. Postal Service has 35,700 stations nationwide and 760,670 employees, including 56,700 window clerks, most undoubtedly nice. Nevertheless, what do we say after such an encounter? All together now: “I hate the post office.”
This is a trivial incident, involving trivial sums. What isn’t trivial is the residue of feeling and the realization that all that feeling could have been averted by a simple apology. Basic rules still hold: Be nice. Say thank you. When you mess up, say you’re sorry.
This past decade we’ve heard a lot about the decay of service. There’s even some consensus on why it has decayed. Corporations are big and spread out, and the people who establish service policy are far from the front lines that carry it out. And those front-line workers, often low-paid, least trained, entrance-level employees, are the only representatives of a “service-driven” business the consumer ever meets.
Businesses were concerned. They talked about customer service and service management, about service-driven organizations, service culture, the service edge, the service imperative.
It was only a matter of time before everyone realized service wasn’t getting better, and “service” had better be divided into two parts: the basic service rendered--probably badly--and the service required to patch things up. Thus the current discussions of sale and restitution, of “regular service” and “recovery service.”
Alas, recovery service doesn’t seem lots better than regular service. The inability to do good is matched by an unwillingness to make good.
The consumer who returns a spool of thread that keeps breaking in the sewing machine is told, “Impossible: This thread doesn’t do that.” A couple complaining that their newly hung drapes don’t hang evenly are told, “Looks OK to me. It’s the windowsill that’s not even.” And wouldn’t we all like a dime for every time we’ve been told, “This is the first time anyone has ever complained about that!”
The usual explanation is that unsophisticated employees are just trying to save a sale, mistakenly believing that this will please the boss. Sophisticated companies that reject complaints may mistakenly believe that admitting any fault at all leaves them open to liability.
This is short-sighted. It’s estimated that it costs business at least five times as much to get a new customer as to maintain an old one. What’s more, a dissatisfied customer supposedly tells many more people of his experience than a satisfied customer.
What’s more, an industrywide pattern of complaint rejection can produce a legislative or regulatory response: Had auto companies admitted to design flaws and made reparations to inconvenienced consumers, there would be no “lemon laws.” There would be far fewer lawsuits if companies admitted and made good on their product or service failure. I’d like more dimes for all the aggrieved consumers who have said, regretfully, “I wouldn’t have taken it so far, if only they’d apologized.”
Indeed, acknowledging fault is just the beginning, says Bill Johnston, program director for executive education at USC’s business school: “You have to apologize, fix it and atone--a gesture of penitence (that says) ‘We’re more than just sorry.’ ”
Atonement might involve a refund plus something extra, and it needn’t be money. “The key is not so much the monetary value,” says Leonard Berry, director of the Texas A&M; business school’s Center for Retailing Studies, “but a demonstration of caring.”
The art of being sorry is taught now. The Postal Service gives its window clerks three weeks of training in technical information and courtesy. It goes “back to the basics,” says Melissa Hamilton, Los Angeles-based Postal Service training technician, including please, thank you and sorry: “Make a mistake, you apologize for it, even if it happens in Chicago. You’re apologizing for the post office.”
Other businesses send executives to seminars such as those run by Johnston at USC, which include discussions of “Recovery and Enhancements in Service Encounters” or, in plain English, amends and atonement. They also have plenty of instructive books and articles available, although with those, they’re on their own with the jargon.
If all the ideas haven’t taken yet at the Postal Service or all these other service-driven organizations, maybe they just haven’t found a persuasive reason. Profit is one consideration, given the second chance to provide service, this time, says Johnston, “turning an angry customer into a loyal one.” Then again, there’s always human decency.
There. I’ve said it. And I’m not sorry.
