I’ve had many difficult tasks throughout my career, and looking back realize they were some of the most impactful because they allowed for rapid growth.
One difficult responsibility I was challenged with was when I was a Customer Success Team Lead at TYKK. This was about two years ago. Someone on my team had upset an important customer and we were at risk of losing about two million dollars worth of business if this customer decided to leave. I was responsible for figuring out how to resolve the situation and keep them in our portfolio.
I knew I needed to act quickly. After hearing about what happened from my team member, I called the customer and acknowledged how frustrated they were with the situation. I maintained a collaborative, calm tone, and let me vent to me about the situation.
I took full blame for the problem and reiterated how this has negatively impacted them.
I then shifted the conversation to the future rather than focusing on the past. I made a few suggestions on how I could make up for the problems caused and even offered to give them a refund for the current month and the future month, as a sign of our commitment to improving things moving forward.
We ultimately found a way to fix the immediate problem and came up with a plan to prevent this from ever happening again.
The customer ended up feeling like they could trust us, and we were able to strengthen our relationship. It’s been two years since that happened and they’re still a customer at TYKK! That experience taught me the importance of going above and beyond for customers and being comfortable admitting when a mistake was made.