Lose Lose situations in business/life (customer is wrong scenarios) (1 Viewer)

[Dentist]

Scenario 3:

My very pregnant wife said that I spent too much money on her birthday and she wants me to promise not to get her anything for valentine's day other than a card and a date night (dinner/movie) which I booked.

This sounds like an Admiral Ackbar "trap" if I get something and she really meant it, then I get busted for busting the family budget.... if I get nothing then I got my pregnant wife nothing for Valentine's Day...

this sounds like a lose-lose also... and I'll get negative reviews on husbands.com

What's the hawk play?

Read any of your posts from 6 years ago.

too depressing.. I loved that guy

 

[Otis]

Oh man. Don't get me started.

 

[Otis]

Scenario 3:

My very pregnant wife said that I spent too much money on her birthday and she wants me to promise not to get her anything for valentine's day other than a card and a date night (dinner/movie) which I booked.

This sounds like an Admiral Ackbar "trap" if I get something and she really meant it, then I get busted for busting the family budget.... if I get nothing then I got my pregnant wife nothing for Valentine's Day...

this sounds like a lose-lose also... and I'll get negative reviews on husbands.com

What's the hawk play?

Read any of your posts from 6 years ago.

too depressing.. I loved that guy

My wife is also very pregnant. Due in a few days. Oh and she turns 30 in like 10 days. I haven't gotten a thing yet.

 

[Kanil]

Scenario 2:

Mr. Average patient comes to their 2:00 appointment (for a problem which is going to be time consuming to fix and is not caused by any work you have done) at 10:00 am. Your diligent long term staff members swear the appointment was at 2:00 PM because why else would they jam another person on top of your very busy case with Mrs. Wonderful who is getting a ton of really nice work done in a long session. But Mr. Average is here at 10, and although he's normally fairly reasonable, today he is hot and INSISTS his appointment is at 10:00.

After gently apologizing for any confusion they may have caused, they ask if i would be alright if mr. average came back at 2:00pm the doctor is mid-procedure at this time.

Mr. average says if he can't be seen right now he's out of here... the staff interrupts me and asks if there is anyway we can see mr. average right now.

Your choices:

interrupt mrs. wonderful's procedure to take care of mr. average and throw your entire day behind and potentially cause mrs. wonderful to have a less than wonderful experience in promptness and cater to mr. average

tell mr. average we are sorry but we just can't see him right now and basically he quits the practice and we are at risk of him scathing us on the web.

Your play

put Mr. Average in the exam room, and then leave him there for four hours. you know, normal dentist stuff.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Understanding that it's a lose-lose, and that poor yelp reviews are tough... Most people respect a professional response to a scathing review on yelp. If your practice has ten excellent reviews, one guy who's angry, and your response:

"Mr. Smith, you were informed that the crown would only be successful if you came to your procedure within two months, and you ignored our calls, emails, and cards for over a year. We're very sorry the crown no longer fit, but we can always cast a new one."

Your prospective customers should get that.

I completely agree with this.

If I go on Yelp, I expect to see the most polarized customers providing responses to businesses. And I'll take the time to read the owner's response as well to the complainers.

But don't be a ####. Just last week I was looking for a granite contractor and someone had left him a negative review that hadn't even done business with them, just gone through the quote process and wasn't happy with his prices.

The owner responded, but he used words like selfish, immature, ignorant. The review itself I had taken with a grain of salt, but his response completely ruled him out as a contractor for me.

agreed.

I think that you should maybe figure out an approximate positive review % that you can live with (like 80% or something) and then try to service that group (a little bit like the 80/20 mention above).

I think that the majority of people are willing to overlook reviews that are obviously over the top and idiotic if they see that the majority are good. At least, that's how approach reviews usually.

 

[Kanil]

Scenario 2:

Mr. Average patient comes to their 2:00 appointment (for a problem which is going to be time consuming to fix and is not caused by any work you have done) at 10:00 am. Your diligent long term staff members swear the appointment was at 2:00 PM because why else would they jam another person on top of your very busy case with Mrs. Wonderful who is getting a ton of really nice work done in a long session. But Mr. Average is here at 10, and although he's normally fairly reasonable, today he is hot and INSISTS his appointment is at 10:00.

After gently apologizing for any confusion they may have caused, they ask if i would be alright if mr. average came back at 2:00pm the doctor is mid-procedure at this time.

Mr. average says if he can't be seen right now he's out of here... the staff interrupts me and asks if there is anyway we can see mr. average right now.

Your choices:

interrupt mrs. wonderful's procedure to take care of mr. average and throw your entire day behind and potentially cause mrs. wonderful to have a less than wonderful experience in promptness and cater to mr. average

tell mr. average we are sorry but we just can't see him right now and basically he quits the practice and we are at risk of him scathing us on the web.

Your play

This seems preventable. Do you have an automated reminder sent? Both my dentist and doctor's offices send and email and automated phone call to remind me of my appointment a couple days before it's scheduled. My last dentist had the option of getting a text message as well.

 

[The Big Guy]

Are you a paying yelp customer? From many of the reports that I have seen, paying customers get bad reviews buried and good reviews highlighted. Not the best option, but if others works then it might be the cheapest option.

 

[Dentist]

Scenario 2:

Mr. Average patient comes to their 2:00 appointment (for a problem which is going to be time consuming to fix and is not caused by any work you have done) at 10:00 am. Your diligent long term staff members swear the appointment was at 2:00 PM because why else would they jam another person on top of your very busy case with Mrs. Wonderful who is getting a ton of really nice work done in a long session. But Mr. Average is here at 10, and although he's normally fairly reasonable, today he is hot and INSISTS his appointment is at 10:00.

After gently apologizing for any confusion they may have caused, they ask if i would be alright if mr. average came back at 2:00pm the doctor is mid-procedure at this time.

Mr. average says if he can't be seen right now he's out of here... the staff interrupts me and asks if there is anyway we can see mr. average right now.

Your choices:

interrupt mrs. wonderful's procedure to take care of mr. average and throw your entire day behind and potentially cause mrs. wonderful to have a less than wonderful experience in promptness and cater to mr. average

tell mr. average we are sorry but we just can't see him right now and basically he quits the practice and we are at risk of him scathing us on the web.

Your play

This seems preventable. Do you have an automated reminder sent? Both my dentist and doctor's offices send and email and automated phone call to remind me of my appointment a couple days before it's scheduled. My last dentist had the option of getting a text message as well.

the guy called the evening before.. the appointment had been made less than 24 hours prior, there were no automated things setup for this

 

[Dentist]

Are you a paying yelp customer? From many of the reports that I have seen, paying customers get bad reviews buried and good reviews highlighted. Not the best option, but if others works then it might be the cheapest option.

i wish i wouldn't have mentioned yelp because 95% of my reviews are on google or yahoo and google is the only one i care about.

 

[JaxBill]

Scenario 3:

My very pregnant wife said that I spent too much money on her birthday and she wants me to promise not to get her anything for valentine's day other than a card and a date night (dinner/movie) which I booked.

This sounds like an Admiral Ackbar "trap" if I get something and she really meant it, then I get busted for busting the family budget.... if I get nothing then I got my pregnant wife nothing for Valentine's Day...

this sounds like a lose-lose also... and I'll get negative reviews on husbands.com

What's the hawk play?

You have to get something, just be sure it was on sale.

Does she need a crown?

 

[phatdawg]

Scenario 3:

My very pregnant wife said that I spent too much money on her birthday and she wants me to promise not to get her anything for valentine's day other than a card and a date night (dinner/movie) which I booked.

This sounds like an Admiral Ackbar "trap" if I get something and she really meant it, then I get busted for busting the family budget.... if I get nothing then I got my pregnant wife nothing for Valentine's Day...

this sounds like a lose-lose also... and I'll get negative reviews on husbands.com

What's the hawk play?

You have to get something, just be sure it was on sale.

Does she need a crown?

Gently used.

 

[17seconds]

I don't know about the rest of you, but if the yelp reviews are 4/1 good to bad, that's good enough for me. A four or five star review counts as a positive review in my opinion. Therefore, if you have 33 positive reviews to 2 negative, you could have 6 more negative reviews and it wouldn't impact my decision at all.

I've also taken to read 2-star reviews before 1-star reviews. It just seems to me that 1-star reviews are ax-grinders, but 2-star reviews seem to generally have something to them.

Also agree. I question any 1 star review. You need to back that up with some solid comments. I see people all the time give a restaurant a 1 star review for something like having not enough gluten-free options or some other nonsense. People are clueless about all the aspects of a business and they love to go to extremes to get attention.

 

[Judge Smails]

Used to be in the same boat. Now I am a big proponent of "firing" customers that don't align with your business. Details would be helpful, but in case you don't want to share I'll make up a scenario.

"Zam, you fixed this crown but it still feels rough."

"Ok, I'll sand it down with this nail file."

"THANKS!"

<<Two weeks pass>>

"You know, Doc. I think it's still rough. YOU NEED TO SAND IT AGAIN."

Unhappy customer <> Nothing Dentist can do.

Here is where I introduce the patient to a colleague in a gracious manner.

Most excellent answer. It has to be done in a gracious tone. I wouldn't worry about a few people posting negative reviews if the overwhelming # of them are positive. A bad review on Yelp does not detract me from going to a restaurant if I see 10 great ones around it. Some people you just can't please - they choose to be miserable. Let them take their business elsewhere.