The Power of 'What We Can Do for You'

I ordered a nice wooden sunbed for my home in Lugano, where I could read a book or two, sip my Aperol Spritz, and look at the mountains and the beautiful lake. Sadly, I ordered it four days before summer ended, and it arrived two days before summer ended. With luck, we’d have an Indian summer, so we might as well set it up.

Once I opened the box, I found the wood broken in a place that would be difficult to repair. I needed to contact customer service for a return but wasn’t excited about the hassle. And just like a plumber’s home has plumbing issues that aren’t fixed, I didn’t consider tapping into my customer service expertise for a few days.

While watching the rowers on the lake being yelled at by their coach through his handheld speaker, I thought, "I’ll try something." So I opened my laptop, chatted with the company, and told them about my issue. Then I said that my girlfriend and I are into DIY, and we’d be happy to try fixing it ourselves, but we wouldn’t return it. I asked if they could offer a credit instead. The chat agent was super friendly and said, "I can give you $30 credit."

The item cost just over $100. I thanked the agent and asked if she could do a bit more for me, and she came back with, "I can give you $50, but this is the max credit budget allocated to me." I found that wording interesting. It read like she was assigned a $50 budget per case or customer that she could issue without authorization, and she made a point of sharing with me that she was giving me her entire budget. So perhaps this was complete hogwash, but as a customer, it made me feel that she was going above and beyond.

I accepted, and within minutes, I saw the credit on my account, which was fine since I planned to order more from this company. She made it clear that she couldn’t refund me actual cash. I forgot about the credit, and a few days later, I received a notification on my phone that I’d received a refund of $50. My first reaction was, "But I wanted to spend it on the website!" my second one was, "Wow. Somebody decided to do more for me and refund me the cash."

I was already a happy customer, but this left me feeling that this is one of those companies that cares. I’ll order through them again and again. And true enough, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars ordering from that company and will likely spend thousands.

The “this is what I can do for you” approach is powerful, unlike the typical responses of “unfortunately” and “regrettably,” which feel dismissive. When I audit customer service and see these words, I flag the agent for retraining. Customer service should avoid using the word “unfortunately.” It’s one word for “I can’t do anything for you, so piss off.”

You may think I’m pushing it, but customers are usually instantly upset when they read that word, and it isn’t easy to rectify the experience. The reason is that they expect to hear about how things are not possible versus what is possible. Instead of "Unfortunately, I can’t refund you the full amount," we could say, "I’m happy to give you a credit of 50% of your order’s value!"

If you want to add a bit more effort, let the customer feel that you worked hard for them by saying, “I checked with my manager, and while we usually don’t do this, he approved my request to give you a credit of 50% of your order’s value.” Customers want to hear that you’re making efforts for them. Whatever you do, all these negatives of how you can’t do this and can’t do that have no place in customer interactions.