Tag Archive for: psychology

Please the Unpleasable Customer: Can it be done?

There’s just no pleasing some people. This is a fact of life, and it’s certainly a customer service fact. One of the types of customer that every customer service representative has to deal with is the unpleasable customer. The stereotypical name says it all: ‘unpleasable customer’. The question is: are they truly unpleasable? Or is there a way to please the unpleasable customer?

What defines an Unpleasable Customer?

First, it’s important to understand the unpleasable customer. In a previous article I called them the ‘eternal complainers…who are simply impossible to please.’ It does not matter how far a customer service representative is willing to go, this person will never be happy with the product or the level of service. Essentially, they are the product of their own temperament and there is little to be done to improve it. However, it’s important to note here that an unpleasable customer is not necessarily an unpleasant person.

I had a customer once, in a cafe, who ordered a regular latte and a slice of walnut-carrot cake. Everything was brought to her table in the standard condition – that is to say, with the best service that we provided for all our other customers. The customer touched her coffee and summoned me back; it wasn’t warm enough. I made her another. This one was too hot, she asked for cold milk on the side. I brought this to her, with apologies and an explanation – our coffee machine was analogue and did not deliver the precise temperatures (that machine was one of the reasons why people kept coming back, it added romance to the place). She told me that if that was the case we should buy a new coffee machine. I told her I would suggest it. I didn’t tell her that she was the only one who had complained. By this time the cake was cold. It needed reheating. Then the walnuts were too hard, and didn’t we know how to properly prepare nuts before we baked them into cake?

You get the picture. You probably read that in such a tone that painted the woman’s voice in a judgemental and harsh manner. She wasn’t. Nothing we did that day could make her happy, but she was never unkind about it. She could have been nicer, but she was never cruel or mean.

Everything she asked for fell within her expectations.

That is the crux of the matter: customer expectations. Unpleasable customers have impossible expectations. They are customers that ask for above and beyond because that’s what they want. They’re not necessarily doing it to make life difficult – although, that might be the case in some instances.

Can we please the Unpleasable Customer?

The point of customer service, is that it doesn’t matter what the customer asks for or acts like: every customer should be serviced. It goes against the grain of customer service to say that some customers are just unserviceable; a good customer service representative should know how to make every person who walks into their store walk out feeling valued, validated, and more loyal than before. The idea that you cannot please the unpleasable customer goes against customer service doctrine! It just doesn’t seem possible.

The easiest thing to do would be to give up, of course; so much energy is required to get any satisfaction out of helping someone who won’t be helped. It’s like pulling teeth. Surrender doesn’t help in the long run. Ignoring, or mistreating an unpleasable customer will lead to intense negative feedback and advocacy – perhaps far more so than with simply an unhappy customer.

The bottom line is: no, we cannot please the unpleasable customer.

We can, however, make sure that they are treated correctly, if only to avoid the deeper impact of negative advocacy.

How do we Please the Unpleasable Customer?

If servicing an unpleasable customer is all about managing their expectations – however outlandish those might seem – then it goes without saying that the only way to please them is to do the utmost best you can. Unpleasable customers often require extra attention – sometimes even exclusive attention. They might even be better served by a manager or supervisor, depending on how difficult they are being.

To answer the question then: We please the unpleasable customer by being extra courteous, doing our best, offering our best, and by being exceptionally patient.

Don’t think of them as an obstacle. Think of them as a challenge. Difficult as they may be, the unpleasable customer can still become a loyal one.

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Human Decency and the Customer Experience

This morning on the way into work, I was confronted with human decency.

After a rough start to the day – starting with my oversleeping – all I wanted was to buy my morning caffeine hit from the little coffee place where I get my wake-up call every morning.

I auto-piloted off the train and out of the station and headed towards caffeine. As I waited in line, coffee in hand, the gentleman in front of me glanced back and then told the cashier that he’d get my drink as well. I didn’t think I looked that tired, but maybe I did; it was one of those days.

Now. As a female, alone, and in public, there are several things that go through my head when something like this happens. My brain processes go roughly like this:

Brain: Wait what?
Voice: You don’t have to!…Are you sure?
Brain: What’s the catch?/I’m not going out with you./There has to be a catch, no one does stuff like this./Do I really look that tired?/Do I come across as being unable to afford my own coffee?/I’m offended/I’m flattered/I’m late! I don’t have time to be nicer!
Voice: Thank you!
Brain: Darn, I hope I expressed my thanks properly./Oh, he’s gone with no further queries or conversation./Now I feel guilty for doubting his motives, I hope he understands that I’m grateful./Faith in humanity restored.

Maybe it’s a sign of the times, or possibly of my inner cynic revealing herself because it’s too early in the morning and my collective consciousness has had a rough start. Truth is, I am grateful. Not just for the coffee, but for the fact that there are still people out there who believe in doing right.

Part of the problem with the world is that we’ve lost sight of each other as individual people. We’re all so caught up in our personal issues that we forget that we’re all part of the same world and we could all use a bit of human decency.

“Pay it forward,” the gentleman from this morning said to me. And I will.

Something else this experience highlighted was that one of the best customer service pointers you can have in your toolbox is simple human decency.

Empathy is one of those things we talk about a lot, but rarely practice. How much do we actually care that the customer who just came in had trouble parking? Or ran into an old friend just down the street? Be honest: we don’t actually care at all – we may listen, and nod and smile, but as soon as the customer’s out the door we’ll forget about their little experience. That’s just how humanity works.

I’m not suggesting that we take everyone’s stories home with us – that’s not healthy, but really listening to someone’s story gives you a deeper connection with that customer, and customer service is all about connections. Human decency is about how well we develop those connections and under what motives we form them.

The gentleman from this morning had nothing material to gain from buying my coffee for me – he wasn’t even the one doing the selling – but what he did prove was that a simple gesture of human decency completely changed my day. Apply that to customer service and you get a winning recipe. Showing people a personal touch, paying a little more attention to their needs, can make all the difference.

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[Intern Insight] Imagining the Future: The Limits of Customer Service Psychology

Customer Service Psychology: Splitting Hairs

Customer service psychology is an ongoing debate amongst the experts and amateurs of every industry. It is all about how you greet, speak and act with the customer. In order to better measure it you have tools such as ‘Customer Journey Mapping’, ‘Customer Emotional Behaviour Mapping’, ‘Customer – Employee Touch points Chart’ and so on. However, in our pursuit of a psychological understanding of our customers we’ve lost track of what they’re actually doing. The thought processes behind every decision a customer makes are all well and good, but once we over-analyse these decisions we forget that behind those choices there are some very basic business consequences.
In the course of designing my current project, a training application for the retail industry, I started by establishing the basic customer journey and the key moments that impact the experience. I definitely agree that this is the best way to initiate a thorough customer experience analysis. Mapping the customer journey is a powerful tool to provide accurate data. That said, I reached an impasse when trying to analyze each moment from a psychological point of view.

Moment Number 1

Let’s start at the beginning!

The customer must be greeted. This is the standard procedure. But how do you greet the customer? Should it be verbal or non-verbal or a combination of both? Are we actually aware when doing it or is it just a reflex? Are we on customer service auto-pilot? Do we take into account the cultural differences or the emotional impact? Are we subconsciously mirroring the behavior of the customer? Does that work in our favor or against us?

Moment Number 27

Somewhere along the way, we get to the moment where the customer decides to purchase. In this step, we are advised to escort him, talk with him, personalize the experience, and make sure he doesn’t change his mind. That’s the best practice – that’s ‘by the book’ in customer service psychology. However, does he even want to be escorted? How does the customer feel being constantly accompanied?

And about all that personalisation…? How personal is sufficiently personal without getting too personal?

The point is that we have these ideas of what the customer should experience in terms of ‘good service’, from the moment they enter the store to their point of purchase. At the same time, we want to measure and quantify it so we can keep track of what we’re doing wrong or right.

If we want to trigger certain behavior, the science of customer service psychology tells us we have to adopt certain attitudes. If we want to create a specific ambambiancee can use certain colors. Need something to look better value for less money? Just put 99 cents at the end of the price. And although we have so many theories and articles that discuss this subject, we still don’t have an accurate grasp on true customer service psychology.

Why is that?

Believe it or not, it’s not so easy to influence the human mind.
It’s not the new trend or the new sales technique that is so effective. The power lies in mapping the customer’s decision-making process. There’s a pattern that repeats itself. Do you buy the latest IPhone because you need it or because it’s new? The pattern of wanting the newest product as soon as it is available is one of the driving successes behind brands like Apple’s IPhone. The psychology behind it, however, can differ from person to person. The idea is that we are trapped in the inertia of our own decision process without even being aware.

There are so many reasons why customers decide to do what they do. In the ocean of all these ‘whys’, should we bother with customer service psychology when, as businesses, we could be focussing on the fact that they just do?

Food for thought.

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure. 

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