Loser Experience: How to Deal With a Customer Experience Gone Wrong

If we’re paying customers, does that mean we’re entitled to a perfect customer experience? It would seem so. Think about this: one of the most difficult emotions to experience is loss. This applies to parting with our valuable resources. We only want to part with those resources if we receive a reasonable gain in return,…

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If we’re paying customers, does that mean we’re entitled to a perfect customer experience?

It would seem so.

Think about this: one of the most difficult emotions to experience is loss. This applies to parting with our valuable resources. We only want to part with those resources if we receive a reasonable gain in return, right? But what do you do when that t-shirt we ordered comes in the wrong color? When the shoes come in the wrong size? When the dishwasher can only arrive next Thursday? When you get pickles on your burger when you asked for no pickles?

When things go wrong, how should we respond?

Well, we respond according to our values. And we have a tendency to think that everyone in our society shares the same values. So, we like to think that our flawed customer experience will be dealt with in a gracious way. But that’s not always the case. This is coming from someone who has let a flawed customer experience ruin his day more than once.

User Experience No More

We place a lot of emphasis on user experience, not only in the software sense. In general, a business wants its customers to have an awesome time when interacting with its products and services. But what if that business, for whatever reason, does not value your experience as a customer like you do? What if there are other values that take precedence? What if things like profit margin or closing down early are more important than customer service? When that stuff happens, it’s not user experience you should be concerned about.

Welcome to Loser Experience.

Good user experience is when a business (or non-profit organization, or artist) wants to create an optimal experience for you. Good loser experience is when you take a negative customer experience and you walk through it as gracefully as possible. You accept and mitigate your own loss. You allow the other party to save face.

There’s a famous quote about this that gets attributed to Sun Tzu (The Art of War). It says:

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

So a business has violated your trust. It has provided you with a flawed (or deeply flawed) customer experience. Don’t you have the right to be mad at them? To talk down to the service representative? To demand a refund and then some? Because hey, you suffered a loss, how can you accept anything else now but gain? You’ve parted with your resources, you need to get them back!

If your resources are threatened, you feel threatened. At this point, what began as an honest trade between two parties has now become a conflict. You have gone from being a customer, a patron, to an opponent. But, as an opponent, why would you want to “build a golden bridge” for your enemy?

Traders, opponents, partners

Because your trade is now a thing of the past, and now you have conflict. And deep down, no one wants conflict. And the only way out is partnership. You now need to partner with your opponent to get out of this flawed experience, and to make it so that your loss was not for nothing.

The next time some sales rep tells you that things aren’t the way they were promised, find a way to partner with that person. Work towards reaching an agreeable outcome for both parties. Yeah, you can just stomp your foot and insist on what you want. But consider this: maybe what you want is more than those movie tickets. Maybe what you want is more than that toaster oven. Maybe what you want is more than that hotel reservation.

Maybe what you want is a culture and society where people are valued over resources. One that is equipped to gracefully handle unknowns and surprises.

Sure, be firm about your position, but be kind as well. Use it as an opportunity to educate others about making a better world. Remember, what was once a trade has become a conflict. You now have the power to turn it into a partnership with a beneficial outcome for both parties.

It’s your job to be aware of when you’ve moved from user to loser experience. And if you’re a loser, I encourage you to be the best loser you can be.

Have you ever had a customer experience that turned into a conflict? Were you able to get out of it gracefully? Let me know in the comments below!