Taking Responsibility

striving for perfection, own your mistakes, central comm award winning service

So many of us strive for perfection, and there are days when we do everything right, and everything runs smoothly. Other times we try our best, and despite all of our efforts to be prefect, we find that we aren’t. I know I try my very best here on this blog, and I go back an read over some of my posts and say, oh dear, I could have done a better job on that one. In those instances, I will literally come back into the blog and rewrite the parts that no longer sound good.

Here at Central Comm, we do our very best every day to make certain we maintain a high level of excellence, but every once in a great while, a mistake is made. What do we do then? We own it and we do our best to fix it.

American Express had a post written by  about Customer Service tips and a couple of them addressed the issue of how to recover from mistakes:

…..2. Use CARP.

Sometimes you screw up. Sometimes, “the customer is always right” rears its head so you have to apologize for doing the right thing. That’s when CARP comes in.

This customer service tip is a process for handling complaints and problems that helps you heal a damaged relationship until it’s stronger than before the problem happened.

  • Controlling the situation so further ill will is prevented
  • Acknowledging the problem to show you care
  • Refocusing the conversation onto creating solutions
  • Problem-solving with the customer so she feels agency

By remembering and working through these steps, your team stays on track even during the most embarrassing mistake. It keeps the customer service session from veering off into other stages like “insisting you’re right” and “taking unnecessary abuse.”

3. Hang a lantern on mistakes.

This is the practice of pointing out a problem early on to help people accept it without undue emotional involvement. The term comes from writing, and is part of maintaining willing suspension of disbelief. If you call out your mistakes—and what you’re doing to fix them—instead of hiding them, you’ll demonstrate your honesty and gain trust.

This is one of the most counterintuitive ways to provide excellent customer service, because the habit for most of the history of branding has been to project a reputation of flawlessness. But this century, people want transparency and authenticity. Admitting a mistake while simultaneously showing what you did to fix it gives both of those things.”

 

Central Comm

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