Yesterday a customer rang me up to give me a very long and rather emotionally-pitched lecture. She said our service is "absolutely shocking." She said in stead of owning up we are covering up. She hinted twice that I have been lying to her. And then she urged me - as she had done on previous occasions "to seriously take a course in customer relations management."
I suppose we could save money on course fees by simply following her instructions. After all, she has been telling us how we ought to run our business since before she even became a customer. Inexpensive consultancy has never been so cheap before.
I don't think anyone could have pleased her anyway. But still, such calls are upsetting - especially if you yourself are a believer in high service standards.
Then there came the irony. An hour later I was on the phone with another customer. She, on the other hand, kept telling me how great we were and how she would do business with nobody else and that she is always telling everyone how good we are.
One service, two people, two perceptions. It is impossible, of course, that both of them can be right. So which one do you think is wrong?
I walked around with that woman's conversation in my mind all day. I was searching for the fatal flaw in our service. There is always something that could have been done more perfectly, but that's not the main thing that I was looking for. I was looking at what the common denominator was that made this one person so desperately unhappy. Why, out of several hundred customers, should there always be two or three that are unshakably convinced that they are recipients of the worst of service? I mean, they do not make up these feelings. They really and truly believe what they feel is reality.
Then I remembered the story of the nun:
A young nun once joined a convent which was run by a Silent Order. Upon her admission the mother superior informed her that whatever happened, not a word might be spoken within those walls, unless it was said with her permission. A year later the mother superior summoned the young nun to tell her that since her conduct had been so exemplary for a whole year, she would be permitted to speak one word.
The young nun thought for a moment and then shyly said: "Cold..."
The mother superior nodded sternly and then dismissed her to her room.
Another year passed until again the young nun was called in and permitted to say a word.
"Hungry...!" she whispered, with a desperate plea in her lonely eyes.
With a disapproving frown the mother superior waved her off and shut the door.
In this silent way another year slowly passed. For a third time the nun was brought before the mother superior.
"In recognition of you having been here for three whole years," the mother superior sternly said, "I will now permit you to say two whole words. You may speak them now."
The young nun hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and said: "I quit!"
For a long time the mother superior surveyed the girl before her and then sighed with resignation.
"I suppose it's for the best," she said. "You've done nothing but complain ever since you came here anyway..."
In my life I have known a lot of unhappy people. I have also found that unhappy people tend to be distinctly critical people. They are complaining people. They proudly approve of good service, not in a grateful manner, but merely recognizing it as being their rightful due.
They energetically seek to identify deficient service, and seek to make a contribution to the advancement of civilization by highlighting it. They draw up petitions. They write letters of complaint. They phone heads of corporations to give them a motherly earful. They keep files of all their correspondence with customer complaint departments. They tell kids and young mothers how they ought to be conducting themselves. They lean across post office counters and lecture clerks about their company's policy. They are the ones that will hold up drinking glasses to the light to make sure that there are no dirt marks on them. And if their should be a single fly in a million gallons of soup, they are likely to find it. They make sure to collect all the evidence. They try to do mankind a favour by bringing it to the attention to the whole world who might not have noticed. They are, after all, the self-appointed guardians of standards and good order.
It is funny how complaining people tend to be perpetual victims of plots and conspiracies, always on the receiving end of never-ending episodes of extortion and misfortune. How is it that these poor souls should always be so dreadfully misused in every way?
So the nun eventually quit the convent - and I do indeed feel sorry for her. But few would argue that she was better off by doing so in any event. In my case, I politely suggested that my complaining customer might be happier by using someone else's service.
"No, I have never had a problem with your product," he retorted. "It's just the shocking way that you people conduct your business..."
I also sighed with silent resignation. If only our service had been worse, perhaps this customer would have quit as well. That, after all, is the kind of customer I would dearly love our opposition to have.
