Documenting Everything in Customer Service

Video Transcript

"In this section we're going to discuss some methods you can use in dealing with tough customers. I'm Pamela Unruh on behalf of Expert Village. Now as we talk about tough customers and dealing with tough customers, it's important to remember document everything. Just as it's important to put notes in a customer's file every time you service a system or help fix something with a customer, it's more important to document when you have something unpleasant like this happen, the physical abuse or the verbal abuse or the profanity because you want to have that to back you up and to protect yourself. Now I was telling you about the customer that beat up our serviceman at the front door, it wasn't two much later that we were contacted by an attorney that this gentleman had hired and he was basically suing us because we refused to service his equipment. All of the activities that happened that day were very carefully documented, they were checked for accuracy, they were put in his file, and not only that they were also emailed to other sources who had a need to know about this type of thing. So I had a very good paper trail about what happened, I had statements from the serviceman and I also had dates and times stamped on the emails. So these were in term provided to the attorney who was very embarrassed to have gotten involved in such a situation and of course contrived because he didn't know the whole story and that just essentially got fused the whole situation. We didn't have to deal with it anymore, but it's very important to document these types of things so that the next person to deal with a customer knows what type of customer they're dealing with. That maybe puts your defenses up a little bit and you shouldn't probably do that with many customers but when you have customers who cross this kind of line, you need to be aware, it's for your own safety."