A Customer Service Checklist: Two Real-Life Scenarios in the Publishing World

By Dave Bailey, PPS Editor
In the current and most likely future “home is the office” business world, one thing remains constant: customer service. Responding to and solving customer questions and problems with alacrity and skill is one of the driving forces of customer satisfaction and one of the best ways to keep customers coming back to your business.

Steven MacDonald’s blog on SuperOffice provides five key tips when handling customer complaints:

1. Listen and understand
2. Apologize
3. Find a solution
4. Follow up with the customer
5. Exceed expectations

Although the list doesn’t apply to every customer service situation, it is a good checklist to follow. As you deal with a complaint, check each tip to see if it applies to your situation.

Below are two real-life scenarios that highlight the value of customer service.

It’s Not “That’s How We Do It,” It’s “What Does the Customer Want?”

Most businesses have SOPs (standard operating procedures) to follow. While many of these have legal and logical reasoning and are often followed no matter what, others are more “that’s how we always did it” and are followed with little thought. So, when a customer makes an unusual request that doesn’t follow SOP, the kneejerk reaction may be to say no. That is a mistake.

For example, a publisher offers a new project for full-service composition and management to a composition service, but there is a catch. The author doesn’t like reading on a computer screen, so the manuscript will be printed out and copyediting is done by hand for author review.

With the growth and ease of onscreen editing, the composition service company hasn’t copyedited on hard copy in years. This would be an added expense and time intensive. What to do?

1. Listen and understand: The publisher wouldn’t make this request if it wasn’t important to the author. The publisher is a valued customer and indicates the opportunity for more work in the future. According to Zarema Plaksij and ISS Market Metrics, the success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60–70%, so it’s very important to keep existing customers happy.
2. Apologize: Not applicable here, so check off and move down the list.
3. Find a solution: Taking time to copyedit by hand would be very slow and may compromise deadlines. Microsoft Word can track changes made by the copyeditor. If the printed manuscript showing all copyeditor’s tracked changes were sent to the author, would that work?
4. Follow up with the customer: Through follow-up emails and phone calls, the publisher and author agree that this solution will work. The author is happy that she will review a printed version of the copyedited manuscript and the publisher is happy that the author gets what she wants without slowing down production time. According to Zarema Plaksij, almost 70% of customers leave a company because they believe you don’t care about them. Working at finding a solution shows customers that you do care and enhances customer retention.
5. Exceed expectations: Continue to follow up with the author and publisher through email and phone calls, and anticipate other issues that may arise based on previous experience. For example, if the author wanted a hardcopy manuscript, should page proofs be printed out for review? Per KPMG, anticipating customer wants before they ask is a great way to exceed expectations. 

A Chapter Title Is Wrong!

The book is finished and at the printers ready for its first press run. It was only then that the publisher saw that one of the chapter titles was wrong and the composition service missed the error. The publisher calls the composition service to complain about the error.

1. Listen and understand: Let the customer air their grievance; don’t interrupt or make an excuse right away. Listen to what the customer has to say and, only after they are finished, respond.
2. Apologize: Acknowledge that the error occurred and that you are sorry that it happened. Strangely, many companies are often unwilling to admit an error even when one occurred. But according to the Nottingham School of Economics, customers are more than twice as likely to forgive a company that offers an apology as opposed to offering monetary compensation.
3. Find a solution: The composition service offers to update the chapter title page free of charge and insert it into the existing printer PDF before printing, and the service will update its procedures so that this problem never again occurs.
4. Follow up with the customer: Through emails and phone calls, the customer service representative offers the solution and the publisher accepts the apology and the solution. The fix is made, the book printed, and the problem solved.
5. Exceed expectations: When the next project comes in from that publisher, the composition service takes extra care and time working on the text to make sure no similar mistakes occur. If you promise a customer that a problem will never occur again, make sure it NEVER occurs again, or the customer will lose trust in you.