Coffee Chat: Best Practices for Customer Communication ☕

If you’d like to review my MAMA method of working with an upset customer, I’ve posted it here: 

And I’ll also summarize it below. 

I hope this is helpful--Micah

Having a service recovery framework is important because, even in the best of times, it’s hard for most of us to improvise entirely from scratch without a structure to guide us and upon which to fall back. And a situation that calls for service recovery is, by definition, far from the best of times. When things haven’t gone smoothly and a customer is upset, employees are likely to feel embarrassed, or defensive, or put-upon, or angry—or all of these at once. With so much emotion flying around, it’s hard for even the most seasoned and even-tempered customer service professionals to do their best.

All great customer-focused organizations have one, and they tend to form a mnemonic for easy recall under the gun. For example: Marriott’s spells LEARN; Starbucks’, quite adorably, spells LATTE.

If your organization hasn’t already committed to a different service recovery system, let me offer you my own four-step MAMA service recovery framework. I expect it will stand you in good stead.

[NOTE: Here’s a resource for community members: If you’d like a free, standalone, printable copy of the four-step MAMA  service recovery approach, let me know by email at mama@micahsolomon.com and I’ll hook you up.]

The MAMA Method for Customer Service Recovery

Here are the four steps to take when responding to a customer who is upset about a service failure:

Make time to listen

Acknowledge and apologize

(have a) Meeting of Minds

Act! And Follow Up

Step 1: Make time to listen

• Immediately stop whatever you’re doing.

• Listen with your ears, your eyes, and your body. Don’t interrupt the customer with questions or explanations.

•Only after listening quietly, strive to learn more about the situation by probing for what the customer is specifically upset about.

Step 2: Acknowledge and Apologize

• Acknowledge the situation and, if an apology is called for (by which I mean the customer feels an apology is warranted, not necessarily that you do), apologize sincerely.

• Even if you have no reason to feel that you’re at fault, you should convey to the customer that you recognize and regret what they’ve gone through.

• Be sure to make it a real apology and not a fakey-fake apology, like “I’m sorry if you feel that way.” (Delivering a bogus apology like that one, through gritted teeth, is probably worse than not apologizing and all.)

Step 3: (have a) Meeting of Minds

• Strive to align yourself to the customer’s expectations for what a solution would look like, and work from there to determine what would both be acceptable to them and would be practical (or even possible) for you to pull off. (In doing this, continue to include your customer in the process of developing this solution, and  strive to be open to a different vision emerging at this point of what a successful solution may be–one that may never even have occurred to you.) 

• Once you have a match, spell out the agreed-on solution, as you understand it. 

• Commit to exactly what you will do to resolve the issue, and by when. 

Step 4: Act! And Follow Up

• Take care of the issue as promised.

• Follow up with anyone to whom you’ve assigned all or part of the resolution.

• Follow up with the customer to ensure all is well.

• Later on, examine what went wrong with an eye toward identifying negative patterns, systemic issues, and chokepoints (for example, repeated complaints of long lines on Tuesday afternoons or of a website that loads slowly, but only on weekend nights), and strive to learn from the error, using this new knowledge, where applicable, to refine future company operations and training.

Micah Solomon 

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Author • ​Forbes Senior Contributor • Customer Service Consultant

President and CEO, Four Aces Inc. 

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micah@micahsolomon.com • micahsolomon.com 

A4. This depends on a number of factors. We all have personal preferences as customers - for example, if I get approached three times by staff offering assistance in a shop I’ll likely leave. Alternatively, sitting in a restaurant trying to get service is a nightmare as is the repeated receipt of emails from an online retailer (including unrealistically long CS surveys).

So for me it’s about balance plus personalization - with both based on feedback.

A2. I guess the starting point is the type of request - whether it be for help or service. In both instances though, there’s a need to provide alternatives. For example, if the issue is best resolved by a third party, then help the customer to access their support services. Importantly, making it as frictionless as possible. Here, passing the customer into the “CS queue of death” because the third-party has underinvested in support isn’t great but expectation management will help.

Sorry I was on vacation, I’ve some belated answers/opinions though :)

AGREED - I have a hard time getting my new customer service reps out of the habit of apologizing for everything. If you didn’t make a mistake, don’t apologize. 
It infers liability when there is none, it undermines the skill level of the employee working the issue, and it sets the customer up with unrealistic expectations for the potential outcome.
Example: shipping is delayed on a product from a 3rd party - this is completely outside our control, so we should not apologize. We CAN, however, offer alternatives that are managed through us (such as we’ll cover shipping fees on this order).

Alright folks, I had an amazing time organizing this. Thank you being a part of our coffee chat, @foxcubmama, @JulieR, @jim.smith, @Jadespire45, @aarvav.akash, and @gfecteau 

A huge shout out to all my co-community members aka my friends at work for helping me pull this out:   @rashmi.nag,and  @SanaSiddiqui       

 See you all in the next edition of our coffee chat. Feel free to keep those conversations going. I’ll get back to all your answers later today/tomorrow. Have a good day/night ahead <3 

A2. How do you turn down requests from customers which you can’t fulfill?

Turning down a request is huge part of offering a great customer service. I feel that more than focusing on what can't be done, we should focus on the next best option or Focus on what you CAN do. 

• Be gentle and provide next steps
• Don't waste time, but don't burn bridges either
• Decline with gratitude
• Be clear, transparent and upfront

A5. We apologize too much quite frankly.  Apologize only if you truly have something to be sorry for.  Apologize less and act more.  When I actually mess-up, I try to own it and have fun with it.  Then ultimately take the corrective course of action.

How to say “I’m sorry” in some fun ways:

• My bad
• I messed this one up
• I’m a dope 
• Silly me

A5 - with honesty and sincerity.  customers will know if you’re just feeding them lines or lip service.  Be honest and sincere with all of your customers and when possible offer solutions that you can deliver.

A1. What are some general pointers to keep in mind when you’re talking to your customers?

Being an active part of customer success and customer service for more than 7 years I have a few tips that always create a positive memorable experience if does not yield a positive result. 

1. Mannerism - I know it sounds very childlike, but I personally feel good manners and positive attitude really makes an enormous impact. 
2. The customer may NOT always be right - unlike the traditional believes I have come to realize that when communicated properly and with the correct facts, customers do appreciate honesty over “Customer is always right attitude “
3. Know when to say sorry: Don't unnecessary apologies, it takes the essences always for a genuine sorry. 
4. Follow up and keep it it positive: ALWAYS go back to the customer even if not resolved to understand their feedback and what would have been an ideal situation for them. 

These are very basic day to day pointers, but are effective in every industry. 

You’re right. In general here’s what we think that works. 

In order to build a foundation of mutual respect, you need to provide value. Commit to delivering value at every interaction in the form of 

• strategic insight

•  targeted recommendations, or a

•  a thoughtful point of view.

A4. This really depends on the customer. Some prefer to feel like a long-time friend and would love to hear from us every day. Others prefer to see the relationship solely as a business transaction and only want to hear from us when they reach out or if there is a large change to operations. 

We generally try to send updates to customers a few times a month (it used to be once a week, but with interruptions to our industry from covid, we don’t have enough new information to warrant weekly newsletters anymore).

Certain customers, though, we talk with every day. This is much easier if you have dedicated service reps assigned to high-touch customers, since they can track the business needs and interact accordingly.