Customer Service and Emotional Investment

Repairing relationships feels great. I took me a while (too long) to get over my own emotional immaturity to realize that I was mistreating a customer. The "aha moment" for me occurred as I was writing a comment regarding service and customer relations on Eric Stoller's blog. It was clear to me that I needed to heed my own advice.

As soon as I got into my office I set about to make things right for a customer that I had under-served. Here is the opening and closing of my email to that customer:

"You are right. I would not want to be treated this way by my vendors. Forgive me for taking so long to come to that conclusion...Thank you for helping me be more aware of how I am serving (or not serving) my customers."

I immediately felt better, but the best was to come. The customer's reply was prompt:

"Thank you very much, and we appreciate your integrity! We have always liked your product and will be happy to continue supporting and promoting it."

I would not doubt if that customer was cursing my name and ProWorks just a day ago. With very little effort beyond making an honest investment into the relationship a very positive outcome has been reached. I even hope that our relationship with that customer is now better than ever. I will tell you that it was absolutely worth the emotional investment. Doing the right thing feels great.