In life, we don’t always hear somebody admit to a fault. We have become so desperate for perfection that we deny ourselves the learning experience of admitting we make mistakes. Sometimes people even resent the fact that somebody admits to being imperfect, as if it’s a crime to be human.
That is why a customer service wish coming true for me this week made such a difference. I have always wished that, just once, a customer who has filled an email with gripes and bile would find it in their heart to admit that it might not have been human error on our part, but theirs. Often when we fix a problem, we simply don’t hear from the customer again. We never do find out what the cause of the problem was.
Late this week, a gentleman (and I use the term with the utmost regard) emailed us to say that he realized he had made a mistake which was preventing him accessing something on our website. He had tried to log in with a stray character in the field; a mere slip of the finger when entering a piece of login information which made all the difference. He went on to say that he admits when he is at fault. Now that is a real upstanding person.
Reminds me of a fictional admission of wrong in the movie Dirty Dancing, in which Baby’s (Jennifer Grey) father admits to having misjudged. “When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong,” he said.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to wait decades to hear such an honest apology from somebody who started an interaction by putting the blame on the second party. “It wasn’t you, it was me,” still works in society. Let’s keep it in mind.
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