Taking ownership

Do you work for a large and complex company? In that case you may get feedback from customers that your company is too complicated to do business with. And to be honest: do you understand the structure of your company in depth? Do you always know whom you need to approach?

Well, we frequently hear that we are too complicated to do business with. But what shall we do with this feedback?

One of my colleagues in customer service uses the feedback to complain in length about it and that it is unfair to receive it as we didn’t screw this customer up. Well, we did. We are part of the company and there should be no „us“ and „them“ within our company. We all are responsible for customer service. And we need to help each other to deliver great service.

Our customers are not interested in how we are organised in business units. They are simply glad to have the opportunity to tell us their needs. We must take ownership of the complaint and we need to identify the root cause. Our goal should not be to find out who did something wrong but to find out why he or she did. Do our employees have all tools they need? Are they trained on how to work with them? Do they know about the company what they need to know? Do they know the right contact points in other business units? Do they know the products other business units sell?

We as managers are responsible to provide all this. And we need to show that taking ownership is more than just pointing fingers on other people. It is all about asking „why did it happen?“ and not „who made a mistake?“.