Reputation Management in the Check-Out Line

The other day at the grocery store, I was standing in the check-out line staffed by a new employee. She was feeling the pressure of not only identifying Italian parsley but remembering the SKU code that went along with it. As the lady in front of me started to leave, she quickly scanned her receipt.

“Did you remember to take off the coupons,” she asked the clerk?

What happened next was a brilliantly simple exercise in reputation management.

The Unexpected Response

When the customer in front of me in the check-out line discovered the error on her receipt, her facial expression projected anger, irritation, and disdain for rookie clerk. She was arming herself for a fight “to get what was hers,” even though the error was probably a few dollars in savings.

The clerk, holding the unapplied coupons in her hand, was clearly embarrassed by the mistake.

Rather than shrugging her shoulders and calling a manager, though, the clerk apologized.

“I’m sorry, I made a mistake,” she said, “I’m new. I’ll fix your bill right now.”

And then she apologized to me because I would have to wait a little longer.

The customer in front of me stood there in shock. In fact, I think she was embarrassed at how she over-reacted for such a small thing. The clerk decided to hold up the others in line to fix one customer’s mistake. The clerk wasn’t trying to make an example of the woman, just make things right.

“No,” the customer said, “It’s alright. I’ll go over to customer service and fix it myself.”

“I’m happy to fix it,” the clerk said, “It will only take a minute.”

The woman, smiling, insisted that she’d go to customer service.

What It Means

Over the years, I’ve seen research that many companies could avert lawsuits if someone simply accepts responsibility and apologizes when there is a mistake. Such a simple gesture goes a long way towards healing a grievance even when the customer isn’t seeking any special consideration.

If this example is typical, there is a big lesson for us all.

Here are other articles I have written on this topic:

• My Great Customer Service Experience with Dean’s Dairy
• Do You List LinkedIn or Twitter on Your Business Card?
• Stocking Up on Heinz Ketchup
• Toyota: How Being First Hurts Your Reputation
• God Wants Me to Purchase Baseball Tickets? Really?
• Writing a Strategic Communications Plan: Key Messages
• Using Social Media to Promote Your Charity
• Why You Should Be Proactive with Bad News
• What to Do When 100,000 People on Facebook Hate You
• What Twitter’s DoS Attack Can Teach Us