At least when it counts…
It’s no secret we live in the information age. But that doesn’t mean all information is good information.
You CAN have too much of a good thing, whether it’s discussing your grandma’s sex life, or telling your customers what’s going on.
In the movie The Departed, there’s a line where one of the detectives says (I’m paraphrasing), “feds are like mushrooms, keep em in the dark and feed em shit.”
And maybe that’s a bit extreme when it comes to your customers, but you should know when to keep your mouth shut. When to tell them what they want to hear rather than the raw truth.
Case in point, last week I had a bunch of issues with the maintenance people at my apartment.
Long story short, the toilet was leaking, and almost any mistake that could be made was indeed made.
The first day, they said someone would be over to fix it. Nobody came, so I called the office first thing in the morning. The phone rang and rang, no answer.
So naturally, I did the mature thing and called them again and again 30+ times in a row until someone actually picked up.
The guy I got said that he had been sitting there watching the phone ring, but his shift didn’t start until 10 so he wasn’t answering.
Too much information!
Later, the maintenance guy tried to work on it. It did not work. He said he was going downstairs to check if it was still leaking, and… never returned.
I called the office, and they told me he went to lunch and should be back, but isn’t answering his phone.
Again, TOO much information!
Customers don’t care about your designated login time. They don’t care about your employees taking 5 hour lunch breaks.
They care about your product or service. They care about getting what they paid for, and having any problems fixed as quickly and easily as possible.
So give them what they want. And in the process, don’t air your dirty laundry about management issues and disgruntled office dummies.
Focus on the problem they contacted you with, and what you’re doing to solve it. Leave the behind the scenes stuff behind the scenes where it belongs.
And if you need a guide on exactly how to get this stuff right, go here: https://gum.co/VNiYy
— Mark
