Rework (14 page)

The best are everywhere

It’s crazy not to hire the best people just because they live far away. Especially now that there’s so much technology out there making it easier to bring everyone together online.

Our headquarters are in Chicago, but more than half of our team lives elsewhere. We’ve got people in Spain, Canada, Idaho, Oklahoma, and elsewhere. Had we limited our search only to people in Chicago, we would have missed out on half of the great people we have.

To make sure your remote team stays in touch, have at least a few hours a day of real-time overlap. Working in time zones where there’s no workday overlap at all is tough. If you face that situation, someone might need to shift hours a bit so they start a little later or earlier in the day, so you’re available at the same time. You don’t need eight hours of overlap, though. (Actually, we’ve found it preferable to
not
have complete overlap—you get more alone time that way.) Two to four hours of overlap should be plenty.

Also, meet in person once in a while. You should see each other at least every few months. We make sure our whole team gets together a few times a year. These are great times to review progress, discuss what’s going right or wrong, plan for the future, and get reacquainted with one another on a personal level.

Geography just doesn’t matter anymore. Hire the best talent, regardless of where it is.

Test-drive employees

Interviews are only worth so much. Some people sound like pros but don’t work like pros. You need to evaluate the work they can do now, not the work they say they did in the past.

The best way to do that is to actually see them work. Hire them for a miniproject, even if it’s for just twenty or forty hours. You’ll see how they make decisions. You’ll see if you get along. You’ll see what kind of questions they ask. You’ll get to judge them by their actions instead of just their words.

You can even make up a fake project. In a factory in South Carolina, BMW built a simulated assembly line where job candidates get ninety minutes to perform a variety of work-related tasks.
^*

Cessna, the airplane manufacturer, has a role-playing exercise for prospective managers that simulates the day of an executive. Candidates work through memos, deal with (phony) irate customers, and handle other problems. Cessna has hired more than a hundred people using this simulation.
^†

These companies have realized that when you get into a real work environment, the truth comes out. It’s one thing to look at a portfolio, read a resumé, or conduct an interview. It’s another to actually work with someone.

*
Carol Hymowitz, “Any College Will Do,”
Wall Street Journal
, Sept. 18, 2006,
online.wsj.com/article/SB115853818747665842.html

*
Peter Carbonara, “Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill,”
Fast Company
, Dec. 18, 2007,
www.fastcompany.com/magazine/04/hiring.html

†
Ibid.

CHAPTER
DAMAGE CONTROL

Own your bad news

When something goes wrong, someone is going to tell the story. You’ll be better off if it’s you. Otherwise, you create an opportunity for rumors, hearsay, and false information to spread.

When something bad happens, tell your customers (even if they never noticed in the first place). Don’t think you can just sweep it under the rug. You can’t hide anymore. These days, someone else will call you on it if you don’t do it yourself. They’ll post about it online and everyone will know. There are no more secrets.

People will respect you more if you are open, honest, public, and responsive during a crisis. Don’t hide behind spin or try to keep your bad news on the down low. You want your customers to be as informed as possible.

Back in 1989, the
Exxon Valdez
oil tanker spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Exxon made the mistake of waiting a long time before responding to the spill and sending aid to Alaska. Exxon’s chairman failed to go there until two weeks after the spill. The company held news briefings in Valdez, a remote Alaskan town that was difficult for the press to reach. The result: a PR disaster for Exxon that led the public to believe the company was either hiding something or didn’t really care about what had happened.
^*

Contrast that Exxon story to the rupture of an Ashland Oil storage tank that spilled oil into a river near Pittsburgh around the same time. Ashland Oil’s chairman, John Hall, went to the scene of the Ashland spill and took charge. He pledged to clean everything up. He visited news bureaus to explain what the company would do and answer any questions. Within a day, he had shifted the story from a rotten-oil-company-does-evil narrative to a good-oil-company-tries-to-clean-up story.
^†

Here are some tips on how you can own the story:

• The message should come from the top. The highest-ranking person available should take control in a forceful way.
  

• Spread the message far and wide. Use whatever megaphone you have. Don’t try to sweep it under the rug.
  

• “No comment” is not an option.
  

• Apologize the way a real person would and explain what happened in detail.
  

• Honestly be concerned about the fate of your customers—then prove it.
  

Speed changes everything

“Your call is very important to us. We appreciate your patience. The average hold time right now is sixteen minutes.” Give me a fucking break.

Getting back to people quickly is probably the most important thing you can do when it comes to customer service. It’s amazing how much that can defuse a bad situation and turn it into a good one.

Have you ever sent an e-mail and it took days or weeks for the company to get back to you? How did it make you feel? These days, that’s what people have come to expect. They’re used to being put on hold. They’re used to platitudes about “caring” that aren’t backed up.

That’s why so many support queries start off with an antagonistic tone. Some people may even make threats or call you names. Don’t take it personally. They think that’s the only way to be heard. They’re only trying to be a squeaky wheel in hopes it’ll get them a little grease.

Once you answer quickly, they shift 180 degrees. They light up. They become extra polite. Often they thank you profusely.

It’s especially true if you offer a personal response. Customers are so used to canned answers, you can really differentiate yourself by answering thoughtfully and showing that you’re listening. And even if you don’t have a perfect answer, say something. “Let me do some research and get back to you” can work wonders.

How to say you’re sorry

There’s never really a great way to say you’re sorry, but there are plenty of terrible ways.

One of the worst ways is the non-apology apology, which sounds like an apology but doesn’t really accept any blame. For example, “We’re sorry if this upset you.” Or “I’m sorry that you don’t feel we lived up to your expectations.” Whatever.

A good apology accepts responsibility. It has no conditional
if
phrase attached. It shows people that the buck stops with you. And then it provides real details about what happened and what you’re doing to prevent it from happening again. And it seeks a way to make things right.

Here’s another bad one: “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” Oh, please. Let’s break down why that’s bad:

“We apologize …”
If you spilled coffee on someone while riding the subway, would you say, “I apologize”? No, you’d say, “I’m so, so sorry!” Well, if your service is critical to your customers, an interruption to that service is like spilling hot coffee all over them. So use the appropriate tone and language to show that you understand the severity of what happened. Also, the person in charge should take personal responsibility. An “I” apology is a lot stronger than a “we” apology.

“… any inconvenience …”
If customers depend on your service and can’t get to it, it’s not merely an inconvenience. It’s a crisis. An inconvenience is a long line at the grocery store. This ain’t that.

“… this may have caused”
The “may” here implies there might not be
anything
wrong at all. That’s a classic non-apology apology move. It slights the very real problem(s) that customers are experiencing. If this didn’t affect them, you don’t really need to say anything. If it did affect them, then there’s no need for “may” here. Stop wavering.

So what’s the perfect way to say you’re sorry? There’s no magic bullet. Any stock answer will sound generic and hollow. You’re going to have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

The number-one principle to keep in mind when you apologize: How would you feel about the apology if you were on the other end? If someone said those words to you, would you believe them?

Keep in mind that you can’t apologize your way out of being an ass. Even the best apology won’t rescue you if you haven’t earned people’s trust. Everything you do before things go wrong matters far more than the actual words you use to apologize. If you’ve built rapport with customers, they’ll cut you some slack and trust you when you say you’re sorry.

Put everyone on the front lines

In the restaurant business, there’s a world of difference between working in the kitchen and dealing with customers. Cooking schools and smart restaurateurs know it’s important for both sides to understand and empathize with each other. That’s why they often have chefs work out front as waiters for a stretch. That way, the kitchen staff can interact with customers and see what it’s actually like on the front lines.

A lot of companies have a similar front-of-house/back-of-house split. The people who make the product work in the “kitchen” while support handles the customers. Unfortunately, that means the product’s chefs never get to directly hear what customers are saying. Too bad. Listening to customers is the best way to get in tune with a product’s strengths and weaknesses.

Think about the children’s game Telephone. There are ten kids sitting in a circle. A message starts and is whispered from one child to another. By the time it gets all the way around, the message is completely distorted—to the point where it’s usually hilarious. A sentence that makes sense at first comes out the other end as “Macaroni cantaloupe knows the future.” And the more people you have in the circle, the more distorted the message gets.

The same thing is true at your company. The more people you have between your customers’ words and the people doing the work, the more likely it is that the message will get lost or distorted along the way.

Everyone on your team should be connected to your customers—maybe not every day, but at least a few times throughout the year. That’s the only way your team is going to feel the hurt your customers are experiencing. It’s feeling the hurt that really motivates people to fix the problem. And the flip side is true too: The joy of happy customers or ones who have had a problem solved can also be wildly motivating.

So don’t protect the people doing the work from customer feedback. No one should be shielded from direct criticism.

Maybe you think you don’t have time to interact with customers. Then make time. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark still answers support e-mails today (often within minutes). He also deletes racist comments from the site’s discussion boards and pesters New York City Realtors who post apartments for rent that don’t exist.
^*
If he can devote this kind of attention to customer service, you can too.

Take a deep breath

When you rock the boat, there will be waves. After you introduce a new feature, change a policy, or remove something, knee-jerk reactions will pour in. Resist the urge to panic or make rapid changes in response. Passions flare in the beginning. That’s normal. But if you ride out that first rocky week, things usually settle down.

People are creatures of habit. That’s why they react to change in such a negative way. They’re used to using something in a certain way and any change upsets the natural order of things. So they push back. They complain. They demand that you revert to the way things were.