Everyone has had a bad experience as a customer.

Maybe your waiter had an attitude. Maybe you stayed in a hotel with really bad internet. Maybe you kept getting the run-around when you called tech support and only after finally fighting to get to the 3rd level did you actually make any progress.

The question is what you do about it at that point. There’s an imbalance in the universe and right now you feel like you’re getting the short end of it. You could vent to a buddy, sure. That would make you feel better about it, but it doesn’t make things right.

So you’ve decided to do something about it. You’re ready to get on the phone and yell at someone or write a strongly worded letter to send up the chain. What do you say? Of course you’re going to try to explain the essence of the injustice. You might even ask to speak the person’s manager when you don’t immediately get what you want. That’s the key then, isn’t it? What do you want?

Often folks will get on the phone, explain their situation, and then just sit there.  ”Your move.” The person on the phone will probably apologize. That’s a start, right? They didn’t cause the problem, but in the absence of an apology from the right person, you’ll take it. What now? Do you hang up? Good job – you got someone to apologize to you. Sometimes they’re sincere, but most of the time it’s an act. They want to get you off their phone so they can move on to the next call.

Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.

I keep mixing up Sun Tzu and Shang Tsung. One of them wrote Art of War and the other sucked the souls from the combatants in Mortal Kombat. Anyway, the quote above came from the former. He was preachin’ it too, boy. Why did you bother getting on the phone unless you had a specific gain in mind? Were you looking for an apology? I doubt it. Maybe you wanted a free night at the hotel, or a free meal at the restaurant. They screwed up – you still paid them. That’s not okay.

If you’re going to take the time to get on the phone, do it with a specific objective in mind. Heck, pick 2 or 3 so you have some lateral to play with. If I stay at a Marriott, for example, and the service isn’t great (this only happens about every 12-13 stays) I do a couple things. First, I write down in as much detail what the problems were and I take it to the front desk. Then, I give them as much time as possible to sort it out (I’m usually there a week). If it’s sorted out to my satisfaction, we’re done – no harm, no foul. If it isn’t, I call the customer support line.

Once you’re engaged with customer support they need to know 3 things – what your issue is, if it’s been dealt with already, and what they can do to make things right again. They want your business. Getting a new customer in the door is much more costly than keeping one they already have. With Marriott I have a rewards program. I give them the first two bits of information and then say “throw 10k points on my account and we’ll call it good.”

The moral of the story is, don’t make them guess what you want. Don’t keep screaming until they figure it out. They’re not mind readers. Unless you strive for a specific objective, you’ll never reach it. They say the same thing about goals, huh? Interesting.