\u201cWell,\u00a0she\u00a0<\/em>was crazy,\u201d I wanted to say.<\/p>\n But I said this instead: \u201cWell, that was a difficult call.\u201d<\/p>\n I took a deep breath. \u201cNow we have two ways of looking at this: we can either talk about all the ways we were right, and she was wrong\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Here I gritted my teeth because the emotions were still running high. Struggling to regain control from my\u00a0amygdala<\/a>, I continued my sentence.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026OR we can see what we can learn from her feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of continually making a business better. It also sounds like \u201ccrazy.\u201d<\/p><\/div> At Media Shower, our failures have often taught us more than our successes. (Here\u2019s a story on that<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Calling a customer \u201ccrazy\u201d is the easiest way of dismissing their concerns. Often it\u2019s these customers \u2013 the most outspoken and least-filtered — who tell you what you really need to hear. Everyone else is too polite.<\/p>\n To be sure, there were plenty of problems on the customer’s side. But we quickly made a list of the ways we could have better set expectations, better addressed her concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cSeems like she didn\u2019t know how to use the platform,\u201d offered Jason. \u201cWe should do a better platform training on our kickoff call. Maybe a walkthrough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe didn\u2019t understand the content cycle,\u201d added Debbie. \u201cMaybe we train customers on when to expect the work each week, then deliver it on the same day. Make it a routine in their schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the customer doesn\u2019t have time to review the work,\u201d Melissa chimed in, \u201cthat creates a bottleneck. We should have a \u2018safety valve\u2019 that releases the work in progress, so it doesn\u2019t pile up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat pressure is what she was feeling,\u201d I agreed. \u201cEach week, the pile of work gets bigger, and then when she finally sits down to review it, she\u2019s not happy, and the pressure just keeps building, until\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026until someone explodes,\u201d finished Kate, laughing. That broke the tension.<\/p>\n So out of that call, we made several valuable changes to our process. For example:<\/p>\n That all came out of one call with one \u201ccrazy\u201d client<\/em>. And the benefits of these changes have been immeasurable: they have made us millions of dollars in the form of happier customers, more referrals, and longer-lasting engagements.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, they\u2019ve made our clients many more millions of dollars, because their work with Media Shower is now better. Their communication is better. And better communication makes better companies.<\/p>\n Clients can now give us real-time feedback on content, which is instantly emailed to editors. That\u2019s crazy.<\/p><\/div> The fastest way to get better is to simply\u00a0listen to your customers<\/em>.<\/p>\n Note I didn\u2019t say \u201ceasiest,\u201d I said \u201cfastest.\u201d<\/p>\n Listening to customers is usually not easy, because customers will challenge us. They\u2019ll tell us what we don\u2019t want to hear: that our product or solution needs work, that our competitors are doing it faster or cheaper, that we\u2019ve got to go back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n Our first reaction is to get defensive. This happens automatically, often taking the form of \u201cIF\u201d statements:<\/p>\n Our egos want to believe that we have the perfect solution, that anyone who tells us otherwise is crazy. Also, our egos don\u2019t want to go back to the drawing board, because our egos are kind of lazy.<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: We don\u2019t have to\u00a0react<\/em>\u00a0to every complaint from every customer. But we try to\u00a0listen<\/em>\u00a0to all complaints, then identify recurring problems (we\u2019ll call these \u201cproblem buckets\u201d). We should also listen for suggestions, to find new ways of improving (we\u2019ll call these \u201cfeature buckets\u201d).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To override your fight-or-flight response, especially with angry customers, takes an effort of will. Your desire to learn \u2013 your drive to get better \u2013 has to override your desire to be \u201cright.\u201d In the heat of the moment, when emotions are running hot, this is difficult to do.<\/p>\n With practice, we can get better. We can do our best to listen as a neutral observer. We can write down or echo back the points we\u2019re hearing. We can separate the helpful (legitimate problems or suggestions) from the unhelpful (everything else). We can find solutions. We can get better.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Crazy Client\u201d is a story we tell all the time at Media Shower because we would have been crazy not to listen to her. That client made us so much better.<\/p>\n At Media Shower, we’re building a better media company.\u00a0Read the manifesto,<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0get a free trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The client asked for the entire Media Shower team to join her on a conference call. And then she let us have it. It was a verbal flogging, telling us everything we had done wrong, and how unhappy she was with the work. She was expecting one thing, we delivered another. She wanted one set… Read More…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[459],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15540"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15546,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15540\/revisions\/15546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Kaizen\"](\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/kaizen.jpg\")
\n<\/center><\/p>\nThe Crazier, The Better<\/h2>\n
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\n![\"My](\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/my-projects-review-content.jpg\")
\n<\/center><\/p>\nThe Drive to Get Better<\/h2>\n
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\n![\"Customer](\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/customer-complaints.jpg\")
\n<\/center><\/p>\n
\n![](\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/static\/img\/ce\/AC13C2C0-1EB1-11EB-B071-FD86B27D50D9\/MediaShower-CTA-5.png\")
<\/a>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n