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The Worldwide Brands Home EBiz Newsletter: "The Right Way To Bite Your Tongue" Go Back to Newsletter Home Page
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"The Right Way To Bite Your Tongue" by Chris Malta You can bite your tongue accidentally or on purpose; one is a regrettable experience, the other is an exercise in discretion.
When done accidentally, the result can be quite painful, and you may walk around talking like a duck for a day or two. When done on purpose, the result can save your business. My partners and I own and operate a very successful Internet Information and Software Publishing business. We partners, and our Customer Service staff, spend a LOT if time dealing with customer service, answering questions by phone and email. Customer Service is probably the thing I enjoy most about the business. I really do enjoy talking with people, helping to answer their questions and solve their problems. It�s also a great way to learn from your customers. If you listen, you can pick up on all kinds of things you can do to improve your site and your business overall. 99% of the people you will deal with every day are a delight to talk to, if you follow the cardinal rule and respond to them in a reasonable amount of time. Every once in a while, though, the other 1% comes crashing into your Email box. There are a very small number of people who seem to have been put on this Earth for the sole purpose of being miserable, and wanting to make everyone around them miserable. If you�re in business, you�ll run into one of them someday. This only happens to us only once in a while. We�ll get an email from someone who is just so nasty that a person just can�t help getting angry while reading it. When you do a lot of customer service work, just one nasty customer can ruin your whole day and really make you feel lousy, even though you may have had wonderful correspondences with dozens other people that same day. Of course, when dealing directly with your Customers, you can NEVER let emotions rule your response to any situation. So, I�ve unconsciously developed a technique over the years that I�ll call the �Unbitten Response�. The Unbitten Response is the reply that I would LIKE to send to this nasty individual, without �biting my tongue� like I know I should. The Bitten Response is the other half of the technique; that�s the reply that I know I HAVE to send, after biting my tongue very firmly. On the rare occasion that I do get an email that just makes me really angry, I�ll write the Unbitten Response first, THROW IT AWAY, then write & send the Bitten Response. I�ve found this to be very therapeutic�by the time I�m done chuckling over the Unbitten Response, I�m over my anger and calm enough to write and SEND the Bitten Response. Here�s an example: the following is an actual email sent to us years ago, concerning a retail web site we operated at the time. We sold Dart Boards, Darts, and outdoor games on that site. Some words have been omitted to protect the identity of the sender. This person claimed to already have written to us once, although a thorough search of our email database at the time turned up NO first email received from him at all, ever. Here's his nasty email: *********************************
To the Attention of the
Owner: I emailed you about returning a set of Darts that I purchased from one of your web sites, and you have not responded yet. I contacted the manufacturer of the Darts. They say that you are currently listed as a "creditable" distributor. They are willing to review your qualifications to remain a distributor pending the outcome of my case.
Unless I hear back from
you by the end of the day today, I will contact the manufacturer and formally
start the process to have you disqualified as a distributor of their products. I
will also contact the State Attorney Generals office for the State of Florida
and initiate a consumer fraud action. I will also contact MasterCard and begin
action to both challenge the charge to my account and to have you disqualified
from using their services. John Doe ********************************* Now, that�s just plain nasty, and more than a little pompous! This was the first time we had ever heard from this person, and all he could think to do was to make ridiculous threats, instead of simply sending a civilized question. Here�s the Unbitten Response email reply I wrote way back then, for my own therapeutic benefit. (Remember, the Unbitten Response is the one you THROW AWAY WITHOUT SENDING!). Hello, John; We are all trembling in fear in anticipation of your vast and sweeping vengeance. No doubt our manufacturer will cut us off without a word, even though we are a top Internet sales producer with a flawless customer service record. We will rue the day we did not immediately comply with your every whim, when the Florida State Attorney General's office brings Federal Authorities and the National News Media in to smash our company into oblivion because you are unhappy. It goes without saying that Visa and MasterCard will simply shut us off on your say-so, they will be more than happy to lose the large amount of money they earn on our transaction commissions every year, even though we have a spotless record with them. It must be a tremendous responsibility to have the entire world turn at your command. I would hate to think about what might happen if your local newspaper missed your home delivery on any given day; media empires could crumble! One or two questions we must ask, despite our abject servitude to your wishes: Why, when there are three different Customer Service email addresses on our site, do we have absolutely no record of your contacting us before this? Why did you not send a copy of your original email along with your declaration of our impending doom? One who was not aware of your absolute power might think that there WAS no original email, and that you had (Heaven forbid!) made some kind of mistake. Of course, we know better than that, don't we? Perfect people, by definition, cannot make mistakes; ergo, the point is moot. If in your infinite wisdom you decide to spare our poor souls from your great and terrible wrath, we will stumble all over ourselves in our hurry to refund your purchase. It must, of course, be returned according to the Return Policy clearly defined on our site; a policy that you have surely read many times in your far-reaching search for our contact information. We almost regret having to remind you that there is a re-stocking fee involved, and you must pay return shipping. We regret mentioning this because it is the manufacturer�s policy, not ours, and we like the people at the manufacturer�s offices. We feel great trepidation at the possibility that you might decide to put them out of business as well. If you do decide to spare the lives and livelihoods of we few, poor transgressors, please respond with information detailing the reason that this evil piece of plastic and metal has incurred your terrible wrath, and we will obtain an RMA number from the manufacturer (providing, of course, that you have not had them swept off the face of the Earth with a single word by then). Following your (hopefully anticipated) act of grandiose beneficence, we will send you the RMA number, and the place that the return must be shipped to. When the product is received by the manufacturer, your credit card will immediately be refunded minus the re-stocking fee by us, your humble servants. ********************************* Ok, that was the Unbitten Response. Now, here�s the Bitten Response that I DID SEND to this person: ********************************* Dear John; We most sincerely apologize that you are having difficulty reaching us and that you are having problems with your order. We have contacted all members of our organization who have access to our email pool and found that we have no record of your first request.
Frankly, from this email, we
are at a loss as to what problem you are experiencing with the product. Will
you please send us a copy of your original email along with a description of the
problem with this order? I will personally address it right away. You may direct
all correspondence to me, Chris, at the email address listed below, and I will
handle all your concerns. ******************************** Now, that�s the proper way to respond, and that�s the email we sent him. However, it�s a lot easier to bite your tongue in these situations after you let it wag a bit in private! As I said, this is rare, and I don�t think I�ve written more than three Unbitten Responses in a year. However, it�s probably saved me from sending a sharper than necessary reply to a few people, which is very important in business. Remember, if you ever do this, write the Unbitten Reply in a Word Processing program, not in your email program, and then trash it when you�re done. Writing one of these in your email program can be risky; �Send� buttons have a funny way of getting accidentally clicked when you least expect it!
Chris Malta |
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