The third rule for working with customers is to take ownership for mistakes. In the last post, I mentioned a story about miscommunications internally within an organization that unfortunately a job applicant got caught in the middle of. However, each of the employees at the organization made the situation worse by not taking responsibility for it.

Things don’t always go as planned but having a lack of ownership is not a great quality for a business to have. Customers don’t have expectations of perfection; they have expectations of accountability.  

If you make a mistake, apologize. Be an adult and take ownership for what happened. Customers sometimes will have more respect for a business if they see a fire being put out than they would if there had never been a fire in the first place. Use the opportunity to show that you are a leader – to the customer, to your organization and to yourself.