“It’s not my fault!” A Poisonous Employee Mentality

How many times have you been a customer and heard that line?

It usually happens right after you bring a product or service defect to the attention of someone at an establishment where you’re spending your hard-earned money.

I was on the receiving end of this statement recently. It was tempting to give a customer service lecture to the person in front of me, faultless as he may have been.

This particular situation involved receiving the wrong fast-food order. I had ordered the medium Unrecognizable Chicken McParts and instead received—and was charged for—the aptly named Super-Sized version. For a moment, I thought perhaps they’d brought me the entire crate of McParts straight from the walk-in freezer but they assured me this was indeed packaged for individual sale and consumption. (Disclosure: While I may find it amusing to poke fun at the fast-food industry, that’s where I had my first job. Accordingly, I’m somewhat sympathetic to fast food employees. Even so, until they start putting the right stuff in the bag, they will be the target of my “how-not-to-do-it” business lessons.)

As a small business owner, I pay special attention to the way service is delivered when I’m the customer. Most folks reading this are probably equally aware of nuances that might be missed by others: The words that are said and how they’re said, body language, the care with which transactions are handled, and so on.

It’s almost unfair to use fast-food joints as examples of how to (or how not to) conduct business. After all, they make it awful easy to identify faults.

So, let’s raise the bar and discuss another industry. In fact, let’s discuss your own company.

Have you had the “it’s not my fault” talk with your people lately? Have you ever had it?

Chances are if nobody has had a direct discussion with your employees they don’t intuitively know that the customer doesn’t care whose fault it is. Even if the customer does know who’s to blame, “blame” isn’t on the agenda. Getting the problem fixed quickly is.

Here’s a good discussion to have with your troops:

• Every company makes mistakes – including ours. The difference between companies isn’t whether mistakes are made, it’s how they’re handled when they occur.
• When the inevitable error does happen to one of our customers, apologize. You represent the company, and you’re doing this on behalf of the company. It’s not an admission of personal guilt or fault, and it doesn’t invite repercussions.
• Take steps to get the customer’s problem resolved. If you can’t do this yourself, be sure it gets handled.
• When you make a mistake—whether it impacts a customer or not—admit it. Learn from your mistakes and share it with others so we can all avoid that mistake in the future.

As business leaders, it’s important for us to shift the focus from fault and blame to learning and improvement.

Banish “It’s not my fault!” from your workplace. Replace it with confident, competent service that keeps your customers coming back.

Meet great coaches like Bill at the Great Game of Business Annual Conference.