We emphasise the need to be polite and solve client problems, but we do not accentuate truth-telling and specificity to the customer.
Imagine a scenario where you hold the privilege of a quality control manager in a logistics firm. The job involves travelling around to many of Kenya’s outstanding destinations. Following a long road journey from Lodwar, you check into your four-star hotel in Nakuru.
You get the opportunity to rest for an hour before dashing across town for an important work meeting. After changing clothes and checking email, you try to leave the room to catch your taxi awaiting downstairs.
However, you discover to your dismay that the hotel room door does not lock properly and, as a result, anyone walking down the hallway can simply push open your door and steal.
Hurriedly, you call the front desk reception from the hotel room phone. You request them to fix the door or switch you to a new room. The receptionist cheerfully responds: “No problem, someone is coming now to fix the door.”
You sit on the bed and wait. Since you just arrived from checking in an hour earlier, you know that the reception is a two-minute walk away. The two minutes pass. Then five minutes pass and you call the front desk again and are told “someone is already on the way.”
Ten minutes come and go, no assistance arrives at your hotel room. Calls to reception to get a clear answer all revolve around responses that someone is already heading there.
Over 20 minutes later, a front desk worker arrives only to look at the door and proclaim “yes, it seems broken”, but is not a maintenance personnel to fix it, also did not carry any extra keys to another room to move you, and proffers no other solution than to wait for maintenance person who is “already on their way.”
Meanwhile, the taxi driver is threatening to leave you behind to go pick a different customer. You keep repeating the same words that the receptionist keeps telling you. So, the taxi driver loses trust and abandons you.
Thirty minutes later you just repack your luggage, wait to hail another taxi, and simply leave the hotel entirely in search of new overnight lodging.
Despite the clear lack of organisational backup structures and problem-solving creativity of the front office workers who could have thought of other solutions to enable you to get to your meeting such as going upstairs and offering to stand guard until maintenance arrives so you could go to your engagement or asking you to bring your luggage down to be held at the front desk until your room door is fixed, a deeper issue has emerged: managing your expectations.
Managers often fail to prepare staff, in particular customer service-oriented staff, to communicate effectively and manage expectations. We emphasise the need to be polite and solve client problems, but we do not accentuate truth-telling and specificity to the customer.
Referring to the hotel example, what should the front desk receptionist’s first response have been? A) “No problem, someone is coming now to fix the door.” B) “Thank you for informing us of this important issue. I do not know how long it will take to resolve, but I will make immediate inquiries and call you back swiftly with full information and alternate solutions.” C) “No problem, I will call you when someone is coming to fix the door.”
Clearly, option A raises expectations that a solution is more imminent than the reality. In some cultures, professionals prefer to delay giving bad news.
While it placates customers in the short term, it will enrage them in the medium term as they discover what they were told was a lie and they could have made other arrangements if they were told the truth from the beginning.
Both response options B and C, on the other hand, manage expectations with specificity and honesty. We must not shy away from empowering our staff to include specificity of details in their handling of our clients.
Author Akram Hoseini highlights the need to deliver bad news in different ways depending on one’s culture. But even national or regional cultures that prefer to delay bad news, he recognises that upfront truthfulness and specificity is better over the long-term.
Give clear details of what you know, what you do not know, how you will find out, and when you will get back to them.
Researcher Robert Bies developed a framework for delivering bad news within organisations: PDT (preparation, delivery, and transition). First, quickly prepare how you will deliver the bad news considering the culture and emotional agitation of the intended receiver. Second, deliver the bad news directly, specifically, and honestly.
Third, transition to discussing alternatives and giving them the opportunity to seek additional information from others within the organisation. Teaching customer service representatives the PDT framework can reduce the number of irate clients and build lasting bonds with your customers.
In short, handle the hard truth now. It makes your future in a few minutes, hours, days, and weeks easier. The harsh reality is better than false hope and retains clients for longer.
