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Resourceful Recovery – Part 2
By Terrel Transtrum and David Taylor
We have developed a six-step process for handling disappointed and even disgruntled field reps.
Step 1. Apologize for, or acknowledge, the fact that the caller is experiencing an inconvenience.
Apologizing without becoming defensive or shifting the blame to the caller is the key expectation and an important first step toward keeping a field rep who's feeling aggrieved. An apology is most powerful when delivered first person. A sincere, non-robotic "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" or "Thank you for letting me know" suggests that whoever is making the apology is taking a personal, professional interest in the situation. The best apology is specific and it shows sincere empathy: "I'm sorry that our shipments to your customers have been late; I know that's embarrassing for you, and it does not encourage your customers to do more business with you."
Step 2. Listen, empathize, and ask open questions.
Callers do not want service professionals to join them in a tirade about "those guys in shipping who should be shot." Rather, field reps are looking for a good listener who allows them to vent their frustrations, shows understanding of their upset, and who, by listening, offers tacit evidence of believing the caller's report of the incident or error.
Step 3. Offer a fair fix to the problem.
After the service professional has acknowledged and dealt with the emotional side of the service breakdown, callers want what went wrong to be made right. It's important that field reps perceive the service provider as skilled, empowered, and interested in a timely resolution.
Step 4. Offer some value-added atonement for the inconvenience or injury.
We often refer to this step as symbolic atonement. The word "symbolic" is carefully chosen. It suggests that little things, when sincerely done, mean a lot to the field rep. The field rep does not expect us to offer to shoot the shipping manager or provide a trip to Walt Disney World for damaging their new recruit's first order. The field rep does expect us to make a reasonable, small gesture that acknowledges the inconvenience. Atonement is critical to satisfaction when the field rep feels "injured" by the service delivery breakdown, when the field rep feels victimized, greatly inconvenienced, or somehow damaged by the problem.
Step 5. Keep your promises.
Field reps are frequently skeptical of a company's recovery promises. They tend to believe that service reps who make promises are more interested in getting the caller off the phone or out of the office than in solving the problem or fixing the field rep's upset. Be honest. Although field reps may huff and bluster at the contact center employee who gives them some bad news, they would rather have employees give them honest and realistic bad news than to lie to them or even slightly mislead them.
Step 6. Follow up.
Field reps are very favorably impressed when a service employee follows up with them after the initial service recovery episode, to make sure that the implemented solution is still satisfactory. This "after the fact" service recovery satisfaction assessment is particularly important in breakdown situations where field reps perceive that they may be "at risk" if they seem angry or upset. Follow-up gives the organization a second chance to solve the field rep's problem if the first effort came up short of the field rep's expectations and the field rep was reluctant to voice the complaint a second time.
(The content of this article is extracted from ServiceQuest® RetentionSmarts™ Modules. Click here for more information on RetentionSmarts™ training and mentoring systems.)
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