I had an interesting conversation with a sales manager recently about a customer complaint. His first response was to list all the problems his company was having – staffing issues, supply chain delays, internal reorganizations. I stopped him mid-sentence and asked, “Do you think the customer cares about any of that?”
Here’s the hard truth: Your customers don’t care about your problems. Not even a little bit. And why should they? They did their job – they placed the order and paid (or agreed to pay) for your product or service. Now it’s your turn to do yours.
I had an example of this a couple of days ago. I was renting a car one-way to Oklahoma City (about a 5 hour drive from my home in Kansas). I’d bought a car, so I was going to drive down, buy the other car, and drive it back. I made a reservation online with Enterprise. Understand – I rent cars somewhere between 30 and 50 times per year, depending on the year. When I travel, my go-to’s are Hertz and Alamo because of the quick service. But neither is convenient when I have to rent locally, so Enterprise it is.
The morning of the rental, they called and left a voice mail for me to call back. I did so, going through two autoattendant menus and holding for 3 minutes because “all of our representatives are busy.” When I finally got through, they said, “We are just confirming the rental reservation and that you’ll be here at 11.” Well, yeah, that’s why I MADE the reservation. No other company does this.
When I show up at 11, they promptly got me into a clean, prepped car, and sent me on my way, right? Uh, no. My car wasn’t there. It was at the tire shop down the street and was being brought back, THEN it would have to be prepped. Keep in mind, they made me call to confirm that I’d be there at 11, but apparently they didn’t confirm that they’d have my car ready. 25 minutes later, I was led to a car that was dirty, had significant enough scratches and dents on it that I took pictures so that they’d know that I didn’t damage it myself, and the interior was dirty. The back seat appeared to have bloodstains in it. NOT kidding. Plus, it had a faint reek of marijuana smoke, and I find the stench of marijuana revolting. Still, it started and went forward and backward, and I was out of time, so away I went.
While I was waiting, I heard excuses about the experience. “Some customers don’t show up, so that’s why we do the phone confirmation.” Not my problem. “We’re short staffed today, a couple of people didn’t make it in.” Not my problem. “Sometimes, the online reservation system doesn’t really match up with our available inventory.” Not my problem. In fact, I thought that I was in a Seinfeld episode at this point.
Time and time again, I see salespeople and service providers falling into the excuse trap. They think that explaining their challenges will somehow make the customer more understanding. It won’t. In fact, it usually makes things worse. Why? Because every excuse you make tells the customer one thing: you’re more focused on your problems than on solving theirs.
Let’s look at some common excuses that customers absolutely don’t care about:
“We’re short-staffed right now.” Really? Did you reduce their invoice because you’re short-staffed? No? Then why should they care?
“Our system is having issues.” That’s fascinating. Did they agree to do business with your system, or with your company? Your internal technology problems are yours to solve, not theirs to understand.
“The other department dropped the ball.” This might be the worst one. Nothing says “we’re dysfunctional” quite like throwing your colleagues under the bus. The customer doesn’t care which department failed – they care that YOUR COMPANY failed.
Here’s what customers do care about: results. They care about getting what they paid for, when they were promised it would arrive, at the quality level they expected. Everything else is just noise.
Want to know the right way to handle service issues? Focus on three things only:
- Acknowledge the problem without making excuses
- Tell them exactly how you’re going to fix it
- Follow through on that promise
That’s it. No elaborate explanations about your staffing challenges. No detailed breakdown of your internal processes. Just accountability and action.
I once had a client tell me something profound: “Every time a vendor tells me about their problems, I start looking for a new vendor.” Think about that. Your excuses aren’t building understanding – they’re building a case for your replacement.
Remember this: Your customers hired you to solve problems, not create them. Every time you make an excuse, you’re essentially telling them that you can’t handle the job they’re paying you to do. And if that’s true, why should they keep paying you?
The next time you’re tempted to explain away a service failure with a list of your company’s challenges, stop. Instead, focus on the only thing that matters: making it right for your customer. Because at the end of the day, that’s the only thing they care about.
