Approaching a Customer Complaint: A Personal Story
Hey there 👋,
It’s been a while since I wrote and shared anything here (not sure if anyone is reading this, but if you are, let me know by clapping at the end 😊).
Anyway, I needed to write this down. First, to dissect my thoughts on a “piece of paper” and then because I’m sure there are different ways to tackle this. Some of them are probably better than mine, and I want to get those different views by being vulnerable and sharing my thoughts on how I’d approach this, acknowledging that this is by no means a guide you should follow.
The Challenge
So, what happened was the following. I was recently challenged to present my approach to the following situation:
“You received an email from a customer complaining about a core feature of your product that it’s not working. The tone is angry, and the customer is threatening with cancellation.”
Considerations
There are several things to consider here that could impact the final approach, and we don’t know them. Is this a recent onboard customer? Does the email come from our champion or a C-level above him? Is this an important logo that, in the eventuality of churn, will heavily impact our MRR? Are we in a small or large company where communication agility and processes could impact the strategy?
My Initial Assumptions
Let’s assume the following scenario, as it is likely the most common for people reading this.
- You work in a 50–100 people company that recently closed its Series A funding round. Communication between teams is quick, and light processes are in place.
- The customer just onboarded within the last 30 days, and the email was sent from your champion, middle management, reporting to a C-level executive.
- The customer represents a significant chunk of your revenue.
- Let’s spice things up 🔥. You don’t have good monitoring that could have flagged the bug upfront.
- The onboarding flow is on track according to your playbook, but you’re unsure if you meet your customer expectations/goals.
Tough spot 🫠
Before I begin my story, let me introduce the key players: Luis, the super CSM (not biased at all) of product XYZ; John, the weary Customer Champion; Ana, the Customer COO; and Jack, the CTO of product XYZ.
El Plan
(Fernando Alonso vibes 🏎️)
Step 1: Acknowledge and prioritize the customer’s complaint
Here’s how I would tackle this. First, I would immediately reply to the customer with something like this:
“Hi John,
I’m very sorry to hear this. Please understand that I’m taking this as a top priority for today and delaying all my other tasks. I’ll immediately engage with my tech and product team and get back to you with some answers within the next hour.
I understand that this is impacting your team. Let me know if you want to jump on a call so I can help you devise an interim solution to tackle this within your company.
Let’s keep in touch.”
My goal with this first move is to acknowledge the customer’s pain, showing that I value their situation and am putting all my efforts into helping them. Moreover, I’m trying to manage expectations by informing them of what will happen internally and when they can expect an answer. I also want them to hold me accountable since I must deliver some feedback within one hour. Note feedback is different from a solution.
Step 2: Utilize team collaboration and customer data to investigate the issue
After this, I would engage with my team in a dedicated Slack channel. This will raise alarms and keep the entire structure aware of what’s happening. It’s a team effort at the end of the day, and we are all in this together. Customer Success is a mindset, not a department 😉
Furthermore, I would gather as much customer data and insights as possible. Looking into the CRM and other systems of customer monitoring/support. Is the customer currently on track with the onboarding plan? Did we receive complaints from other customer team members? Depending on how things progress, I’ll gather knowledge to help design my next move.
Let’s make things more challenging. 😰
For some reason, your tech team discovered that this bug only impacts that particular customer. They need more time to design a solution and provide a timeline for the fix.
Your customer hasn’t answered your email.
Step 3: Show empathy and transparency in communication with the customer
The next play would be to call the customer. I would be transparent by explaining what’s happening and that we are still investigating to find the root cause and plan a fix. We only expect to have an update by the end of the day. Meanwhile, I want to assess the impact that this is having on the champion, team, and manager.
“How are you feeling? How’s this impacting you this morning?”
I want to establish a human-level connection and show empathy by letting him know he’s not alone and I’m there alongside him.
“How’s your team doing? Are they working as usual, or is this impacting business?”
Knowing this might help me understand if there’s something that I can do to ease their team’s pain. Taking a manual process that could mitigate the issue for them, talking with their team to explain the situation, and making them comfortable to share developments that could help the fix’s development.
“Is your COO bugging you with this? Do you need help to explain what’s happening?”
Could we have a call to discuss the situation, provide an update on the fix, and determine the next steps? This is me stepping in to take the bullets from him and collaborate on a joint strategy to address this challenge. We’re partners in crime 🤝.
Imagine that he picked up, answered, and expressed deep concern. I noted the sadness in his voice and troubled behaviour, and he explained that his team was suffering. They are reverting to the process they had before using our solution, and people are talking badly about the product, losing trust. Although his boss is unaware, he won’t take long to read the complaints.
Fortunately, I knew the previous process well enough to help. I offered to take some of the load off him by preparing an Excel file as part of that process. This would relieve him of some work and give him more time to be close to his team. He agreed and appreciated my offer. I also offered to have a quick call with his team to explain the situation or draft an email that he could use to manage expectations and push his team to our side. He picked the second option.
Finally, we decided there was no point in delaying the communication with his manager. It’s better to receive news from us than scattered information that could do more harm than good. Before the call ended, we devised the main line of an email, and it was my task to write and share it.
Step 4: Implement a joint plan with the customer to address the issue and keep all parties informed
I started writing the email to his boss first.
Subject: Issue with Feature X | Update and Next Steps
Dear Ana,
I hope this email finds you well. I’m writing to let you know that we are currently facing an issue with Feature X. We understand how important this feature is for the success of your project and want to assure you that our entire engineering team is investigating what happened. Our CTO, Jack (in Cc), is also taking this as a top priority.
We are partnering with John to mitigate this issue’s impact on his team. We are still investigating the root cause and hope to come up with a conclusion and a fixed plan by the end of the day. Rest assured that we are doing everything we can to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
If you need more details, I’m available to jump on a call with you. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.
Best regards,
Luis
Afterwards, I prepared a note for his team. During the call, we agreed that he would convey this communication, and it should be concise and effective in building rapport and making his team part of the solution, not the problem.
Here are the key points:
- The product XYZ team is aware of the issue and is investigating the root causes.
- They are asking for our help. If you have any additional notes or notice any other strange product behaviour, please forward them to me or reply directly using the support chat. They treat this as a high priority, and their support representatives will know what you are discussing.
- Luis, our CSM, constantly communicates with me and Ana and will keep us updated on any developments.
- Luis is also working on the ABC spreadsheet that we use to complete task X.
- It’s important to work as a team and ensure that information flows quickly so we can solve this issue together as soon as possible.
Phew, I feel like I’m writing a novel. As you can see, this could take several routes now, from the bug taking longer than expected to be discovered to Ana reacting very badly to the email or John’s team starting to undermine the plan. Or, things working well and all rainbows and flowers at the end. I’ll stop this exercise here, hoping that this already helps and boosts a discussion on different approaches. Depending on the feedback received, I might consider developing this story 😁.
Until next time,
Luis.
PS: Many thanks to Angela Guedes for reviewing and assisting with this article 🤗
