Whenever a customer is about to do something necessary but that they don’t like, you need to be at your most cheerful and helpful.

The last time I got my flu shot I had a very friendly nurse. She was cheerful, made a joke to set me at ease, and made the otherwise dreadful “I’m getting a shot” experience a rather pleasant one.

Flu shots are one of those things that people have to get that they don’t necessarily like.

Your business may likewise sell products that are necessary, yet painful, for customers. Or perhaps you have business processes that customers have to go through but that they hate (think product returns).

You, as a business, can make these experiences more pleasant and in so doing turn the tide of consumer sentiment.

Here are some steps you can take to ease customer pain when they are expecting the worst:

• Explain what exactly the end result will be
• Tell the customer what you will be doing
• Explain what the customer will need to do
• Outline anything the customer will experience (wait, discomfort, etc.)
• Call the customer by name to personalize the experience
• If tension is high, break the ice with some humor or a distraction that takes the customer’s mind off of the negatives
• If the pain is caused by your mistake – fix it

By helping your customer through painful transactions with you, they will recognize that you care and that will help build your relationship with them.

Beware of problems with your company and product leaking from one department to another.

When issues are caused by one department’s error, it may not be detected until the product reaches another group or even the customer.

Unfortunately, the farther down the line the mistake travels, the less likely it will make it back to the original offending party to correct future mistakes.

This can put your company in a constant battle of producing errors and mistakes that are never corrected and the effects thereof constantly being felt by those “downstream.”

The last time we needed a faucet for our bathroom sink, I found a new, sealed box on the store’s shelf and purchased it.

When I got home and opened the box, I saw that the faucet wasn’t the same as was shown on the box. In fact, it wasn’t even close.

Oops.

I took the product back to the store where the customer service folks and then the department manager helped me and refunded my money.

In this case, a quality assurance problem with the product wasn’t felt by the packaging and shipping people but rather those at the end of the line: the customer and the customer service people.

Granted, not all problems will be caught before your products are handed off to the next group.

However, you need to have a feedback mechanism in place to continually refine and correct issues that are detected later in the purchasing cycle so that they can be prevented with future occurrences.

Your company may be broken into silos internally but don’t let this let you run your business inefficiently.

Identify the problems in one group or department that have a root cause in another and make changes across the board.

Customers’ expectations are set in more than just the fine print.

I had a failed attempt at returning a product to IKEA recently that highlighted how customer expectations are set in multiple places and venues.

We purchased a laptop workstation at IKEA, put it together, and realized that it wasn’t going to work for us. When I tried to return the product, I was told that I couldn’t return it since it was built.

So I offered to take it apart. Would they accept it then? No.

I offered to put it back in its original packaging. Would they accept it? No.

Every thing I tried to do to comply with the wording on the receipt was denied.

At every step, the employee gave me a reason that wouldn’t work. Reasons which seemed to run counter to what the wording on the receipt told me or didn’t mention in the first place.

It was impossible to return my item. I left a very unhappy customer.

My wife and I have literally spent thousands of dollars furnishing our home with IKEA products. Unfortunately, this incident tarnished my impression of IKEA and directly impacted my likelihood to buy from them again.

This reminds me of what Andrew Lock says on his video podcast: “Marketing is everything and everything is marketing.”

Assumptions

IKEA was relying on me to read and interpret the fine print on the receipt to match their definitions of words like “unused” and “built”.

Unfortunately, they had three failures that lead to confusion. You would be wise to make sure you aren’t setting false expectations with your customers.

Mistake #1. Appear to Accept Returns

There is a large area near the checkout registers where IKEA sells as-is products. This gives the impression that they are reselling products that people have assembled and returned.

Lesson: Does your store, website, or other public-facing materials give the impression that you allow certain things that in fact, you do not?

If so, make some changes. Be consistent across the board.

Mistake #2. Appear to Welcome Returns

IKEA has big posters showing a heart with open arms extending out of its sides that says “It’s OK to change your mind.” Unfortunately, it isn’t really OK to change your mind once you get your product assembled and can actually see it isn’t what you hoped it would be.

Lesson: Broad statements with emotion-invoking imagery doesn’t compel people to read the fine print and get the real story.

Mistake #3. Conflicting Copywriting

IKEA receipts are printed on stationary paper that includes the company’s return policy. This doesn’t match the bold black letters that are on the front of the receipt printed at the register. Which one should I believe? Inconsistent information confuses customers.

Lesson: Does your company have different messages in different places? Your receipts, website, signage, emails, and all other forms of communication should be consistent in their wording and message.

Impressions Matter

IKEA gives the impression that returns are welcomed and that you can have a worry-free purchase. “Don’t worry,” they say. “It’s OK to change your mind.” Unfortunately, they fail in comunicating the reality of what they are willing to do.

I asked the employee at the returns counter: “Surely I can’t be the only customer with this problem?” She responded: “We have to turn away a lot of people for the same reason.”

This screams of a failure in the process. With so many failed returns being attempted, surely IKEA could do a better job of setting expectations up front.

Lesson: If you are seeing lots of frustrated customers post-sale, something must not be right on the front-end. Take a look at your communications, processes, and products. What is causing the failure downstream? Identify it and fix it.

If a customer wants or needs more from you than their original order, don’t view it as an inconvenience, but rather more business for you.

We recently took our van into the dealership for a manufacturer’s recall. We scheduled an appointment and showed up promptly on time.

As I was checking into the dealership, I asked if they could take a look at the vehicle’s alignment.

This extra request was greeted with disdain and I was told “we can do that but it will take a lot longer to get your car ready.” The message I got was clear: you don’t want that alignment service.

So I got the recall service taken care of and then drove to another shop to get the alignment fixed even though the dealership could have fixed the problem and had my money.

In your business, you’ll find times when your customers realize they need more from you than originally planned.

This is a great opportunity for you since they will thus be spending more money with you.

Instead of a terse response like the dealership, you should say “Yes! We can do that for you.”

The extra work may take longer. The request may even mean higher costs to the customer.

However, your customer asked for it!

Respond positively. Yes! You can meet the customer need.

Once you identify that yes, you can deliver what the customer needs, you’ll need to then set expectations on how that changes what you need from the customer.

For example: “Yes, we can fix the alignment on your car. Alignments typically take an extra hour to service, is that OK?”

If you can meet the customer’s need, do it! Acknowledge it positively and with enthusiasm. After all, your customer wants to spend that money to fix the problem. Make sure that money is with you.

At one point or another, your customers will need to wait.

Your customers will wait before, during, and even after their transaction with you.

How you attend to the customer during these three stages will greatly impact their perception of you and their likelihood to purchase from you again.

On a recent family vacation, we went to Disneyland. This self-proclaimed “happiest place on Earth” delivers that promise exactly because they attend to the details at every stage of the waiting game.

Before

Every ride that you go on at Disneyland has an expected wait time posted as you enter the queue to stand in line.

Setting clear expectations with customers up-front reduces any ugly surprises from happening.

Disney crafts the waiting experience to wind you through entertaining landscapes, visuals, and builds up the story of the ride you are about to experience. So even though you are waiting, there is still an element of entertainment.

How can you engage, distract, or entertain the customer while they wait with your business?

During

Occasionally, rides at Disneyland stop midway through. When this happens, a recorded voice immediately announces that the ride is temporarily stopped and will resume shortly.

If there are delays in your transactions with customers, they will want to know what is going on. Immediately acknowledge the delay, and communicate when things will resume to normal.

After

Almost every Disney ride we went on finished by sending us through a gift shop that shared the theme of the ride we just finished.

After a customer has completed a transaction with you, it is a great time to upsell the customer on another product and to reinforce the experience they just had.

Total Waiting Experience

Your customers will have to wait before, during, and after transacting with you. If you enhance those interactions with customers by making the wait time less of a burden, you may very well make your business the “happiest place on Earth” for the moments they spend with you.

If customers are searching for your company’s customer service, they need to find you and not a third party website.

One surprising source of visitors to this site is people who actually think that I am the official representative of the company they want to reach.

For example, I get lots of people searching for “huggies customer service” and they land on a post I wrote about my good experience with Huggies four years ago. Why do they find my site? Because, last I checked, I showed up first when you Google that search phrase.

Shouldn’t Huggies be number one? Absolutely.

I also get questions about DiGiorno pizzas. Why? Because I’ve written about DiGiorno in the past, too.

These examples highlight an area of concern that your business needs to worry about:

Your customers are looking for support and your customer service contacts. Can customers find you by searching for you on Google?

If they can’t, then you are invisible. Not only invisible, but vulnerable to what others are saying in your place.

You will be replaced by someone else, not at your company, that is blogging about you or talking about you in an online forum.

Your customers will not always be able to tell that a third party site they visit isn’t yours.

So today’s action item is to google your company name, and especially “your-company-name customer service.” Are you showing up in the results?

Your business needs to be where people are looking. Additionally, you need to be where customers are talking. Be sure to monitor customer word of mouth and stay on top of any issues that arise.

When your pay depends on customer service, go the extra mile.

Here is a tale of two restaurant servers. One earned a nice tip, the other lost it.

A week ago, my team at work and I went to Macaroni Grill for lunch. The waiter, Luigi (yes, that was his real name, he proudly informed us), was the best waiter I’ve had in a long time. He was very courteous, attentive, and treated each of us with respect.

As we ordered our meal, we told Luigi that we’d all be on separate checks. His sincere response was, “Thank you for telling me, I really appreciate that.”

I thought this was nice but didn’t think much more about it until we had an opposite experience a week later.

To celebrate the upcoming wedding of a co-worker, a large group of us (about 18) went to lunch at the Kona Grill. We made reservations ahead of time so they were very aware that we were coming. Our server took care of our minimum needs but nothing more. When it was time for the check, we asked if she could do separate checks. She indicated that would be too difficult and left the whole check with us to divide up.

Our group spent the next 15 minutes passing the check around, scrounging up cash and writing notes with credit cards of how much to charge on each.

After the check had gone around, we counted up the money to realize that our server was not going to be getting a good tip. Everyone had paid for their lunch and indicated they tipped but the total amount of cash didn’t constitute a nice tip on top of that.

If the server had done separate checks or in some way facilitated our payment, each person would have likely given the appropriate tip that was somehow lost in the anonymity of a group check.

A little extra work from this server would have dramatically improved her earnings for that lunch hour. Instead, she took the easy route and was probably wondering why the stingy tip.

Contrast this with our friend Luigi, who took our needs into account and earned himself a nice tip.

When you are serving your customers, you have a choice: Do the bare minimum or go the extra mile. The extra mile is never easier but it is full of rewards and happy customers.

You may start to see patterns in customer behavior and attributes. This may lull you into feeling like you can start treating customers the same. However, that doesn’t mean that you can treat the next guy in line the same as you treated the customer in front of him, even if their buying behavior is identical.

Be careful if you find yourself falling into this over-generalization trap.

Just because customers look the same, doesn’t mean they are the same.

Customers may look alike because of numerous reasons. For example, different customers may have similar:

• buying patterns
• product preferences
• technical support issues
• product return habits
• purchase methods (credit card, cash, etc.)
• deadlines
• warranty needs

My wife and I have identical twin daughters. (Yes, being a dad of twins is an adventure.) But even though our daughters look alike doesn’t mean they are the same person. Each has her own personality and mannerisms that make her unique.

These differences show up in how each daughter reacts to her environment, her needs, and even how she expresses herself.

Your customers can often be like identical twins. When you serve enough customers, some of them start to look just like the last one you served.

Before you jump to conclusions on the type of customer you have in front of you, make sure you have enough data points to confirm your classification before you proceed. Customers are often annoyed when you jump into a solution or sales pitch for something that doesn’t apply to them!

Identify the basic needs certain classes of customers have. If you can guarantee you’ve got a customer that fits that mold, by all means pull out the standard response as a starting place for servicing their needs.

If you aren’t sure what type of customer you have, ask questions.

A critical part of the customer experience is the moment your customer receives their purchase.

If this is a physical product shipped from your website, take a moment to think about the situation your customer is in when the package arrives.

What will the customer be doing when it arrives?

Is this purchase a secret?

I recently purchased from lego.com and noticed an interesting message on the plain brown box:

Why are LEGO Shop At Home Boxes so plain?

You might have noticed that our shipping boxes are not quite as colorful and exciting as our toys. There’s a good reason for that — many people order gifts for others from LEGO Shop at Home. By keeping our boxes plain, we help gift givers keep their secrets!

Consider how your package will be received. How can you improve your delivery to both reinforce your brand and delight the customer with your thoughtfulness?

Have you ever been to a store and not found what you were looking for?

This happens all the time and it even happens to your customers.

On my last visit to JCPenney the cashier asked me, “Did you find everything you needed today?”

You’ve probably heard this question a few times yourself as you checkout at various retailers.

I answered yes and asked her, “Does any one ever say no to that question?”

She quickly responded, “Yes. Senior Citizens. They’re never happy.”

Yikes. Bad mouthing other customers isn’t a good idea but aside from that, this example highlights a problem your business may be having: different customers are having different levels of success with your business.

Have a plan in place on gathering customer feedback at the point of sale. Answers to the “Did you find everything” question can be extremely valuable in identifying problems customers are having.

Know How to Find Your Stuff

If you ask customers “May I help you?”, they expect that you can help them. You better know where your products are and how to help the customer find them.

At Lowe’s, whenever I ask an employee where I can find a certain product, they stop what they are doing and walk with me across the store to show me where it is. My wife reports the same type of customer care at Hobby Lobby. Every time. Wow!

This is a great example of not just asking if you can be of help but actually being helpful to the customer.

You Can’t Find What You Don’t Sell

Customers will occasionally ask you for a product you don’t sell. These situations give you two great opportunities. First, you can get information on why the customer thought you had that product. Perhaps this will indicate some consumer demand that you can meet.

Second, you can provide great customer service, even if they aren’t going to be your customer. Directing a potential customer to another store that has the product (when you don’t) builds goodwill and leaves a great impression on the person.