Yes to customer service, but set the limits

I am an avid advocate of a great customer service, your customer deserves the best, but you must sit the limits. Over the past couple of weeks, I hit a road block with one of our most important customers. We were not able to complete a service request on the promised time because of some government regulations which keep changing, the customer would not accept my explanation and threatened me that he will take his business somewhere else.

What to do? I know that our company could have used its social network and we would have resolved the customer issue at this time, but that would have set our limits too high and the customer would expect that each time. I thought this was a bad policy.

So, I sat with the customer and explained to him the importance of his business to us and we strive to give his company the best customer service for his money, but there will be limits to what we can deliver and I want to make that very clear.

The customer didn’t feel very good about that, but I had to stand my ground and make sure I don’t promise what I can’t deliver.

At the end, the customer was able to digest what I said and he felt more confidence in our service.

So, don’t promise what you cannot deliver.