Money means different things to different customers.
Money means different things to the same customer, at different times or in different contexts.
Different amounts of money mean different things to the same customer.
And so forth. It gets exhausting for someone in business, someone who's hoping to please as many customers as possible.
Money is highly symbolic. In fact, it’s only symbolic. Unlike its Guys And Dolls-era nickname, “lettuce,” it has no nutritional value. And its symbolism is complicated, variable, and ever-shifting.
This reality has practical implications for how you interact with customers
Small amount of money + unfair circumstances = big customer problem
Once you realize that money means different things in different circumstances, there are some pretty safe bets you can make about how customers perceive it. One way to bet is that even the smallest amount of money, demanded of or taken from a customer under circumstances the customer considers “unfair,” will have a disproportionate impact (negative, of course) on your business – while a large amount of money, required of the customer under circumstances that seem fair and square, will seem an understandable part of doing business with you.
Language Matters.
Next, be very careful how you talk about money, balances due, and so forth. What you charge may be very fair, and agreed to by all, but if you’re overly forceful and direct in asking for it and collecting it, you're digging an early grave for your customer relationships.
When I set up a customer service improvement initiative for a company, language is one of the first things I work on. And on the list of the list of language I do my best to banish is “You owe.” Absolutely, customers will owe money. But there are more gentle—euphemistic, actually—ways to get this across. “Our records show a balance of,” or if you really want to pussyfoot—and I’m a fan, in such situations, of pussyfooting with customers—how about “Our records appear to show a balance of…”
Customers fail to pay you for a variety of reasons. Because they don’t have the money. Because they have all the money in the world and as such they forgot, assuming you know they’re good for it. Or because they’re chronically late payers. (I was speaking with a very smart woman the other day who does a lot of work with chronically late-paying customers One thing that came out of that discussion? The late payers, the partial payers—we need to be nice to them, not only because being nice is the right thing to do, but this is simply how these customers live their lives. And their payments, late and partial though they are, are valued.)
Customer service recovery
As far as customer service recovery, when you’ve messed up as a company or a provider? It’s a real trap to try to be “fair” (fair as you see it) with customers. They were harmed to the tune of (by your calculation) $100. So you find a way to refund them $100. This isn't much of a solution. As I’ve written before, don’t kid yourself that you’re doing something special for a customer by making things how they should have been in the first place. Time cannot be given back—it’s gone. The chance to get it right the first time? It’s gone. So re-creating how things should have been is probably not enough. You need to then give the customer something extra.
But even if you offered the customer double her money to compensate for the loss of time and convenience, you’re not necessarily home free. You need to think out why they are out the initial $100, and what it may mean to the customer. Was the $100 failure accompanied by what seemed to the customer to be an insult? Or inattention? Or is the entire issue trivial to them? For a high net worth individual (or, in a B2B context, a buyer on a large account) , the actual money in question probably is trivial in relative terms--yet its meaning may or may not be.
This stuff gets complicated. I suggest engaging the customer herself as a consultant. Avoid guessing how any particular amount of money, in any particular context, will affect the customer, and ask, instead, what seems like a good resolution to her. And then let her know what you can do, and, more importantly, that you care.
Micah Solomon is a customer experience consultant, keynote speaker, and author. Reach Micah at 484-343-5881 or micah@micahsolomon.com
