5 Worst Things You Can Say to a Customer

Posted: March 27, 2012

There are certain things that should never pass your customer service team's lips, or you can lose [caption id="attachment_9902" align="alignright" width="400"]© JcJg Photography - Fotolia.com[/caption]customers in the blink of an eye.

Almost nothing leads to a customer service meltdown more quickly than the use of one particularly offensive phrase. You know it. Heck, we all know it. I don’t really even need to write it. However, just in case you’ve been hiding-out in a California commune or were raised in upper Albania, here it is:

'That’s our policy.'

I’d wager that even as you read those words, you flashed-back to a past personal experience in which someone spoke them as if they were a magic wand that would miraculously make you go away. But, of course, you didn’t go away. You just became more frustrated, and more convinced that particular company had little interest in your eventual satisfaction.

In seminars, I call it “TOP,” and it is a phrase that is less than useless. It is destructive. TOP is the customer service equivalent to “That’s tough” or “You’re out of luck.” It’s primary purpose is to shut down a conversation. TOP only accelerates the transformation of current customers into a former customers, and was undoubtedly crafted by someone completely oblivious to the value of customer retention. Even worse, for some customers it’s a declaration of war. Every dispute-gone-viral tracked by my firm has involved some version of that terrible text.

Whenever someone tries TOP on me, I respond with a carefully crafted policy statement of my own, “Your internal policy decisions have nothing to do with my expectations of customer satisfaction.” And that’s the point, customers should not accept contract verbiage as an excuse for a less-than-promised product or service. “That’s our policy” might save a current sale, though all future business will likely be lost.

Click to read the 5 Worst Things You Can Say to a Customer.