28 Aug We’re all customersof something
This week, a client inadvertently stepped into the crosshairs of a few very unhappy customers, and I had a front-row seat to the unfolding foray.
What happened had me reaching into my archives for this 2019 article. Because we’re all customers of something. And every day, we see yet another story of someone who thinks they’ve been wronged.
People are up in arms, wrath and recrimination spilling across news, social media, and our conversations. So how did we get here? After all, it is only a tiny minority of people and organisations who deliberately do the wrong thing and treat us terribly.
I believe most people who run and work for organisations have good intentions. They get up every day and plough through the unheroic work and everyday barrage of promises that come with the territory of what they do. They’re not perfect. Far from it. And they will make mistakes.
In other words. Why do we forget that people who run organisations are just like us?
In equal parts, I blame social media and the whole ‘you have to delight your customers every time’ meme that permeates experience discussions.
The first has given us an unfiltered platform to air any gripe. The second has created a climate of entitlement that feeds the first in a toxic loop that can make it almost impossible to do business without incurring someone’s ire.
Now, before everyone starts screaming that social media has provided a needed platform to shine a light on the actions of businesses behaving badly. I agree. But there is a world of difference between a deliberate effort to defraud customers, systematically denying them their due and a flight running late.
Unfortunately, nuance is not part of the landscape. And, full of that sense of entitlement I mentioned, we certainly don’t discriminate.
Yes, we are entitled to expect what is promised (whatever ‘what’ is). But if it doesn’t happen and we get an ‘I’m sorry, let me explain and make it up to you’, maybe we should should show a little grace and accept it. We’re certainly not entitled to expect more than was promised. And if we do and don’t get it, then it’s on us.
A trade needs both sides to take equal responsibility and care, yet things feel seriously off-kilter. For commerce to work, there has to be trust that we’re each acting from a place of shared interest, and once that breaks down, the whole system gets wobbly.
Which brings me to my final point. As customers, we are part of the trade, and it’s past time we stepped up and accepted responsibility for our role.
Yes, we accept terms and conditions (often without reading them). Or in my client’s case, ignore expectations that were set.
We discount how busy someone is, and think we’re more important just because we have the money. Forgetting the effort and investment in getting whatever we’re buying into our hands. Judging on a fraction of the information about what’s happening.
I’m not proud of the indignant flames I’ve hurled at times. And probably will again. But I’ll also examine my role and customer responses more carefully.
None of this exempts organisations from responsibility for their promises. For keeping them so value can accumulate in their brand. And when they break them or make lying promises, I’m happy to call them out.
But, next time you’re ready to jump online and write a bad review or pile on about a perceived failure. Please stop. Take a minute to wonder before you hit send, if just maybe whatever happened wasn’t about you at all.
Maybe somewhere, someone just like you made a mistake.
Thanks for reading