The Lost Art of Personal Responsibility

Something I talk with my students about is personal responsibility. The all too common sentiment of “that’s not my job” can be seen across industries in terms of customer service/client satisfaction, and the consequences are far reaching. There are so many amazing employees and businesses, but bad apples can spoil the bunch, as they say. Here are some thoughts and anecdotes on the topic, as well as fodder for consideration for individuals seeking to maintain or improve their personal brand or stand out in their career, in any field.

I had a couple of experiences, one as a customer/client and one with a client of mine that were very similar experiences, but with very different outcomes:

SCENARIO ONE: I went to a store to make a quick purchase. I went in, found something that worked for my purposes, and took the item to the register to check out. The sales associate informed me that the item was improperly tagged, and that it was actually three times as much as the tagged price. Imagine my surprise finding out that I was not only NOT getting a deal, but my psychological preparation to pay one price was completely thrown off with the actual price not even being in the same ball park. Being that I am my own best advocate and a customer service aficionado, I began to inquire about whether they would honor the advertised price, since by their own admission it was mismarked. Now, most nationwide establishments with which I am familiar and used to having dealings would not have even put me in the situation to have to ask the question because their policies are clear and rehearsed in a scenario like this. The associate proceeded to inform the store manager of the situation and asked what should be done with respect to my question. The store manager contended they could not honor the price being that it was so much less than the actual cost and went on to say that they did not know who or how it got improperly marked. I ended up leaving the merchandise and the store and going back to my car.

My StrengthsFinder “Learner” theme may have kicked in at that time because I decided to call the company’s corporate office to find out what their actual published policy was in circumstances like this. Sure enough, the customer service agent on the line said it was their policy to honor advertised pricing, and in a case like mine they should have rung me up without question. With that, I semi-marched back to the store and asked if the associate would speak to the customer service agent whom I asked to stay on the phone, and she did. After the discussion, the associate called the store manager and said in an incredulous tone “She called corporate,” referring to me. They rang me up begrudgingly. At that juncture, I fully expected to hear something, even if half-hearted, along the lines of “our fault ma’am, thank you for shopping at [XYZ retail establishment]. Have a nice day.” To my chagrin, instead the associate said to me: “I hope you sleep well at night!”

SCENARIO TWO: A client of mine said they sent me something that I did not receive…or so I thought. The client was able to reproduce the item that they sent proving to me that it was in fact sent, because admittedly I was a little skeptical. I live in my email, I think that was one in 100,000 that I truly was not able to recover at the time in question. For me, there was only one direction to go from there; the way of the contrite. I apologized for the mistake and, further, absolved the client of the remaining financial obligation because I made an error that caused time to be wasted, and almost faulted the client for something that clearly there was no need to faulting them for. Serving the client’s needs first, maintaining professionalism, representing my brand well, as well as creating a situation where the client would still be able to speak positively about their experience were key considerations of my approach.

TAKE AWAYS

 What made the difference in these two scenarios? I posit, as you may guess, personal responsibility. I think now of companies and individuals in hot way (think Volkswagen’s PR nightmare for outright dishonesty to shareholders: Volkswagen will now pay 15 BILLION with a ‘B’ dollars in fees and penalties for their indiscretions).

I understand corporations and their clients can function different relationally than individuals do with one another, but the thing I continue to wonder is what if someone came to the constituents involved and said “We made a mistake, this was our fault AND we’ll fix it,” BEFORE the whistles started blowing? Could the threat of lawsuits, plummeting stock, brand tarnishing, etc. be abated, by the act of someone(s) taking responsibility?? We may never really know, but I am inclined to believe that, generally, people are forgiving when there is true penance. The outrage would still flare, the initial financial costs would likely remain the same, but I’d like to think that genuinely admitting fault would trigger compassion and remind constituents of things most of us would like to identify with, like honesty being the best policy and human decency still existing. The establishment I mentioned in the first scenario is now out of business (surprise, surprise!).

I may be entirely biased because “Responsibility” is another one of my top five StrengthsFinder themes. The buck stops with me, and I always feel like there is something I can do, if not fully resolving the issue, because I will try. I may also just be more inclined to think this way because of what seems to be the lost art of individuals fueling groups that fuel communities who appreciate, foster and demand personal responsibility with and for themselves and others.

You might be saying “how does this relate to career development, again?” Well, the highest mark of quality in representing a brand is providing quality customer service and doing repeat business–this means doing what’s required to honestly and humbly maintain the relationship…even if that means saying, “I was wrong.” If nothing else– like the purely noble reasons of such an approach–swallowing pride and taking a loss creates the potential of having that client return and/or bring others to your fold. The cost is that client being unsatisfied and spreading the word about their dissatisfaction (See these FACTS about customer service. One jaw dropping statistics is that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for a negative one. If you’re like me, I’m not as interested in getting to that second experience after an insufficiently resolved initial one, let alone 12 more. For too many, they imagine that the aforementioned costs do not exist, but they do! It’s good human practice and good business/personal brand practice to own up fully to mistakes and work to avoid them in the future.