Talking with a business owner recently, he was telling me how a customer had complained about some work his company had carried out in their home. It wasn’t that the work was sub standard but there had been a few delays due to wrong items being ordered, which caused the job to drag on.
The complaint had been posted as a review on a review website and had stated that ‘when I asked the guy in the shop, who was one of the owners, why the job was taking so long? He told me that they were very busy at the moment and had a member of staff down and he was doing the job of two people, so just a bit stressed out and had made a couple of mistakes in his orders’.
I’m not suggesting that you lie about the reasons a job is taking longer than expected but don’t expect any customer to be sympathetic or understanding about mistakes just because you’re ‘busy’. They would expect you to be busy, because you’re good! That’s why they chose your company to do the job in the first place.
A sincere apology and an assurance that you are doing everything in your power to rectify the situation is the best course of action if you’ve made a genuine mistake. Possibly offer some sort of compensation for the inconvenience caused due to your error, to demonstrate you are genuinely sorry and you’ll usually keep them on side.
Let’s face it, if someone has complained about something, it usually means they are unhappy, worried or anxious about the potential outcome and simply telling them you are busy and overworked will only add to their anxiety.
We all want happy customers at the end of the day.
