Strategies for Squeaky Wheels

There will always be complaints, but what if its the messenger? A couple examples on how to handle those squeaky wheels.

Transcript

Welcome back to my podcast, Scaling Out.

Complaining, its something we all do right? In management, there will be a lot of complaining, enough to drown in it if you let it. So you must take a step back and think strategically. 

The biggest complainer might not be the best place to spend your time. 

From an employee perspective, what time is being pulled away from your best employees?

From a customer perspective, they might already be lost – is there any reason to save?

Take a step back and plan an approach.

Is there a theme? Have you heard this complaint from more than one or two people. If so, this is something to take an action to investigate. Note that I didn’t say immediately address, you need to gather all the relevant information, ensure you understand the facts and whether there is anything within your control to be done.

What if it’s the messenger? 

If you have a continually complaining employee, asking direct questions such as ‘what would you like me to do about this’ are important. Sometimes they ARE just using you as a sounding board to gain advice & ultimately they do NOT want your involvement. Other times, they want you to fix it completely and you must then share what you CAN do to alleviate the complaint. Note that this might mean you cannot fix it completely, but for example you can setup next step conversations or tasks to get things redirected. I also like to ask for their advice - think thru solutioning on their own. 

Now - If you have a continually complaining customer, overtime the complaints are ignored by the team simply because if everything is a complaint nothing is a complaint. Sometimes the customer fails to realize this quandary, and providing that feedback is very rarely done. Hey, they are our customer and spending money on us, so don’t rock the boat, right? Well, this does go back to my April 11th Customer Whisperer podcast, because you do have these opportunities more than you realize. The trick is to know WHEN to take advantage of them and communicate where THEY are at, clearly stating that you SEE or FEEL how frustrated they are in these complaints and you want to help but you need their help.

For example redirect the complaints into next steps such as:

‘Hi Trevion. I hear the level of frustration in your voice around the lack of progress on this task, and you have voiced similar concerns about other tasks as well. Can you help prioritize what is critical for the team to focus on right now?’ 

You must consider in this how much time will be consumed by your commitments made during the above discussions. You will need to weigh in whether the complaint and the subsequent actions justify the cost and provide the value or return expected. There are going to be situations where the complainer is always a complainer and they are simply pulling away your time from more valuable pursuits. Whether, for example, its using your time coaching an emerging leader on the team rather than listening to someone vent. Or whether the customer’s value to the business revenue actually justifies making significant changes to address their continuous litany of complaints. These are required strategic planning exercises to ensure that your time ultimately is spent where it should be, on value creation.

Thanks again for listening into my podcast, Scaling Out. Until next time, stay safe everyone!