NEVER BLAME THE CUSTOMER(TIPS ON CUSTOMER SERVICE)

When things go wrong, most companies' kneejerk reaction is
to look for someone to blame. If you're BP, you blame the
contractor for a big oil spill in the Gulf. Other times, you
might blame another employee. The blame game is never a good
idea. Customers don't want to hear it. What they want is for
your company to step up to the plate, take responsibility,
and resolve whatever issue they're having.

But the blame game becomes an especially horrific idea when
companies decide to blame the customer. In the past couple
of weeks alone, we've seen two major brands take this
incredibly stupid PR approach.

First, there was Apple. When it was discovered that the
iPhone 4 had a faulty antenna, the tech company's first
response was to blame the user, saying they were holding the
phone incorrectly causing the signal to drop out:

"Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its
antenna performance with certain places being worse than
others depending on the placement of the antennas," the
company said in a statement. "This is a fact of life for
every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your
iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a
way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal
band, or simply use one of many available cases."

Needless to say, customers were less than thrilled with
Apple's response, and they only got more upset. Finally,
Apple responded by giving them what they wanted (free
bumpers for improving phone signal), but the PR crisis could
have been much smaller if they had done that from the
beginning.

But Apple isn't the only company who mistakenly points the
finger at the customer. Remember the Toyota debacle? In case
you don't let me refresh your memory. All across the
country, people were getting into wrecks and many died
because of sudden acceleration in Toyota's vehicles.

Well, just when things have finally started to quiet down
for the auto manufacturer, they insist on stirring things
back up by saying some new research shows that drivers were
to blame for the accidents.

"Toyota Motor Corp.'s investigation of accidents involving
unintended acceleration where motorists said they pressed on
the brake pedal shows that "virtually all" involved drivers
who pushed the accelerator instead, a company spokesman
said.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is looking into
causes of unintended acceleration in its cars and trucks and
has recalled more than 8 million worldwide in the past year
for defects such as pedals that stuck or snagged on floor
mats. U.S. auto-safety regulators are also probing the
causes and haven't released their findings."

Auto safety advocates called the report "totally ludicrous."
It's easy to understand why Toyota did this, as they were
trying to reestablish their credibility, but it's just never
a good idea to blame the customer-even if he really is the
one to blame. The public still sees Toyota as responsible
for all those accidents.