Let's face it...no sales person or company executes perfectly 100 percent of the time. We all make mistakes, gaffes, goofs, and blunders.
However, how you respond to those situations affects your brand, company's reputation and ability to continually increase your sales.
A few days ago we ordered pizza from a new restaurant that opened in our neighborhood and the person in the call centre told me it would take 35 minutes. However, almost an hour later I still hadn't received our order so I called to check on the status. The first words the call centre agent uttered were, "I'm so sorry" followed by, "Let me check on that right away."
The driver arrived while I was on hold and he apologized for the tardiness of the order, explaining that they were much busier than anticipated. He also offered a couple of $5 coupons toward our next purchase.
But wait, there's more!
When the call centre agent returned she immediately apologized again and connected me with the customer service department (on a Sunday!). When the CSR came on the line he, too, apologized immediately.
Every single person I spoke to apologized!
Now, compare that to this experience...
I drove to a local UPS store to ship three cases of books to a client. The store is supposed to open at 8:30 AM but when I arrived at that time the doors were still locked. I waited (impatiently) for 15 minutes until someone arrived and opened the store.
She (I learned later that it was the manager) held the door open for as I lugged the boxes of books into the store but instead of apologizing for her tardiness, I heard a litany of excuses why she was late. Traffic was heavy; she had to drive from another city, blah, blah, blah.
When I left the store I was pissed off. My schedule was thrown out of whack and I was extremely frustrated by the manager's behaviour and lack of apology.
Here's how these situations apply to sales.
It's not uncommon for something to go wrong after a sale has been closed and quite often that mistake is caused by someone else or another department.
Your customer doesn't care why the mistake happened. All they want is for you to acknowledge the problem, apologize and correct it. However, very few people actually say, "I'm sorry." Yet, this simple acknowledgement can go a long way in helping you solidify relationships with your customers which will lead to an increase in your sales.
Why is "I'm sorry" such a hard phrase for people in business to say?