Details In Business Blog

by Elizabeth Cusulas
Details In Retail, Inc.

In a democracy we often brag about the power of a single individual.  So why don’t we carry this idea into the workplace?  Recent events have made me wonder just how often we devalue the individual and how this affects our success in business in ways we can’t begin to measure.

One is the loneliest number…
A few months ago, our internet connection went down.  We did the usual reboot, unplug the router, reset the works stuff and then notified one of the support staff.  Her reply struck me as bizarre.  She said, “no one else has said anything.” Not, “I’ll look into it,” not, “I’ll find out what the problem is.”  I persisted.  She grudgingly mentioned it to the office manager who made us reboot both computers half a dozen times,  reset our router three times, pull cables from the wall three times and waste nearly an hour of time before someone else finally noticed that their internet was down too. Whoosh! Suddenly troubleshooting began in earnest and they discovered that there was a problem with the office system.  It was fixed in minutes.  At least two unhappy clients were required – one was not enough? 

For months now, the tenant in the office down the hall from us has been trigger happy with a can of cinnamon air freshener.  She uses enough to scent the entire 20 foot hallway in our wing of the building.  It affects me like mace.  A few weeks ago, after an hour-long bout of choking, I nicely asked the office manager if she could please ask the tenant to stop spraying.  Nothing happened.  Yesterday I spent another few hours choking.  I staggered down the cinnamon fogged hallway and asked for the office manager.  She wasn’t in.  I told her assistant that I really needed something done and I was more than happy to knock on a door and ask the woman to please stop the spray.  The assistant told me she would handle it.  I reminded her that I’d been told that before.  Instead, she came down the hallway and told me that it wasn’t really that bad and she couldn’t bother the other tenant right away because she was with a client.  And then she uttered that magical phrase, “no one else has said anything about it.”  My boss talked to her.  Now we were two.  The spraying stopped.  

Sum formula errors…
One office unable to do any work is fine?  One person choking is fine?  Both are easy fixes, but because the perception was that only one client, one office or one person was involved, no one seemed to have much interest in correcting the problem.  When did ignore the one, carry the two become the new math of daily business?

Earlier this year, our “high speed” internet was so slow it was like sucking peas through a straw.  That was our first introduction to “no one else has mentioned it.”  Eventually, everyone else mentioned it, got angry about it, fumed about it.   Then the process of fixing the problem finally began – months overdue.  Did they lose tenants or potential tenants?  How many? They’ll never know for sure.  One plus one plus one plus one – it starts to add up.

Roaches and canaries…
Here’s the thing.  Unhappy clients are like roaches.  For every one you see, there are dozens more hiding in the woodwork.  The truth is, most people don’t bother to say anything about bad service.  Most unhappy clients just wander off.  They’ll assume that you don’t – or won’t – care.  They will, however, talk to others – undermining your reputation while you blissfully assume that everything is fine because “no one else has mentioned anything.”  So my advice is to use the canary in coal mine method.  If one client complains, take it seriously.  Not the perpetual whiner client, but the client who takes the time to tell you that something is wrong that you can fix.  They’re your early warning system.  Instead of dismissing them with, “no one else has mentioned it”, why not say, “thank you for bringing that to our attention; let’s see what we can do to correct the problem.”

The clients you view as a pain in the rear are offering you a shot at redemption.  Take it.  The internet offers a single unhappy client the unprecedented power to rain viral woe on your business with just a few well-placed mouse clicks.  Now, more than ever, one needlessly unhappy client is a liability that none of us can afford.  We need to recalculate the value of one.

Or maybe it’s just me…

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