I got this email a few days ago, and thought it an interesting object lesson. It reads:
The email was a response to a survey we send to every customer we clean for. The survey is one question, which is “On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend our services to a friend or family member?”
What is interesting to me is his phrasing. I understand the frustration: he finds out he could have saved some money if he had known about the special that was going to be happening the next day. I agree, it kind of stinks being in that position. I also understand why he wrote the email. I would have written one, and it probably would have been similar.
What bothers me about it though is the implied threat. The threat that if I, as the business owner, don’t give him a refund, he’s going to go to Facebook. What that means, I suppose, is that he is going to say something negative about us and our shady practices of not honoring deals and sales. I’ve been there as a customer, and I appreciate it when I bring things up and the business is willing to work with me a bit on things, maybe giving me the same deal. The problem with this is, though, that this is a service, and not a product that can be returned. He was more than willing to spend the money for the work that was done at the time, but when he found out he could have gotten it for a little less, he got upset and frustrated.
I can feel his meaning, like I said, I’d have written something similar. My first reaction was to write back saying “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see this and give you a second chance at writing your request, without the threat this time.” Of course I didn’t do that, instead opting to say I’d be happy to come out and clean the fourth room for a donation of canned food, which is what the deal is for. I still haven’t heard back from him, so maybe I was a little stronger in my wording than I thought.
Now, as a business owner, I am a lot more likely to handle this as the customer wants without the implied threat than I am with the threat. The threat makes me mad, and kind of makes me want to throw it back at him in a rude and sarcastic way. I won’t, because I’m a professional, but that doesn’t change the feelings I have, and it is now a resentful situation. No good for anyone.
The point I want to make is this: don’t be that guy. It’s not fun being on the business owner side of things, and getting threatened by someone. In reality, his complaint to Facebook wouldn’t hurt my business at all, in fact, it might even be good for it. We don’t hide our negative reviews, but embrace them. There are so few, comparatively speaking, that it adds a bit of dimensionality to our reputation. And how we deal with the complaint helps us to show other customers how we handle problems. No one should ever trust a product, service, or company that only has good reviews. Nothing is perfect, and it is the bad reviews that help us as consumers to see what potential downsides of a particular product are.
As businesses, we should embrace them, respond professionally, and work to straighten things out. But don’t be afraid of them. Use them, learn from them. I suppose if you have more negative than positive, you may need to work on what you’re doing… But if not, don’t take it personally. Use it as constructive criticism, and grow.
DaveGrigsby.com 