Rule #21 Defusing the Bomb

Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire? Or the green wire? No, the white wire. Definitely the white wire. I think …

We already acknowledged that apologies are the right call when dealing with an inactive customer. We are not customer service, however, so let’s not get confused. There is a whole other book out there somewhere for customer service people on how to tackle tough situations with customers. Right now we are talking about customers who are not acting like customers. They have access and ability to use our product, but they are not using our product. We can restart them with an apology, but I need to emphasize that apologies are tricky. In business, problems necessitating an apology are very nuanced, so your understanding and approach to business apologies had better be very nuanced. 

Unfortunately, when I first introduced this concept to my peers, it blew up in their faces. I got a few calls that caused me to add a few important caveats to the suggestion of apologizing to inactives. Please heed my warning: Apologies are not blunt objects to throw at other people to resolve conflict. Apologies, in essence, take an offense from the offended and place it somewhere else. 

Think of it as taking a ticking time bomb from your customer. You need to quickly defuse the bomb or find the right place to put it—before it goes off in your hands. Better yet, you may be able to utilize the nuclear energy of the bomb strategically to ignite and power your sales. 

In your personal relationships you should be able to think of a time when an apology failed to achieve the goal or simply wasn’t accepted. I found out a lot about ineffective apologies when I got married. A poorly executed apology only made things worse. With business apologies, that same dynamic is amplified.

Let me help you understand apologies by using another relationship example. I have nine children. Years ago I learned from a parenting curriculum

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to make a careful distinction between accidents (childishness) and rebellion (foolishness). Accidents require a simple apology: “I’m sorry, Mommy.” Rebellion and disobedience to the stated house rules, however, are much more serious and require forgiveness. Rebellion and disobedience break the parent-child relationship, which must be restored. And that is when it gets interesting. 

When a four-year-old has to ask for forgiveness, they rarely manage a full confession and an accurate description of the act in their confession with less than three tries. “Daddy, will you forgive me for ______?” When a four-year-old fills in the blank, it is almost comical, but fill in the blank, they must. They really struggle to overcome their embarrassment and confess their fault honestly. They know what they did, but they won’t say it. 

As their father, it is my job to ensure that the stated offense is honest and accurate. “You did not lose your brother’s new airplane; you took Mommy’s scissors and cut it up into a hundred pieces and fed them to the fish in the pond. Now, try again.”

In the same way, a business apology must accurately place the blame in the right place—accurately but also strategically and thoughtfully. 

For example, a manager recently received a call from a surgeon (Surgeon A) who was irate and had just kicked the local representative out of his office. The Surgeon A insisted the manager come and meet with him to address his grievance. The Surgeon A was upset that a surgeon (Surgeon B) in the next town over was advertising our products in his (Surgeon A) town. He (Surgeon A) assumed that we were supporting this marketing effort, and he was furious. 

When she received that call, the manager and I happened to be together, and we discussed the situation. As we discussed her follow-up plan, she decided to apply the call flow and start with the concept in her strategy in order to defuse the bomb. The surgeon (Surgeon A) agreed that our product represented a good concept and benefited patients. He also agreed that patient awareness of this beneficial product was a good thing—in concept. So it was time for the manager to apologize. But where would she place the bomb she was about to take from the surgeon? 

Would she place it on the rep? Not if she was a good leader. 

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Would she take it upon herself? It really wasn’t her fault. 

Would she place the offense on the company? The company had not supported the advertisements in any way.

Would she place it on the other surgeon (Surgeon B)? He had done nothing wrong. 

You can see how this could quickly get complicated. But what if she could find something and not someone to place the blame on? In this instance, the surgeon (Surgeon B) advertising was using the product in ten out of twelve cases per month. The surgeon (Surgeon A) with the complaint, however, was using the product in two out of six cases per month. 

In the end the plaintive surgeon agreed that the problem was that his patient base didn’t know he offered the product. He still had a geographic advantage if awareness increased in his local market, but he wasn’t putting himself in a position to capitalize on it. Even worse, if patients responded to the advertising of his competitor, the complaining surgeon was likely to find himself with a bait-and-switch conundrum, as he was not actually utilizing the product very much. 

The apology worked. The manager did apologize for misreading the Surgeon A’s lack of utilization as a lack of enthusiasm for the product. This put him in the position of having to insist on being very enthusiastic and recommitting to utilization, which would justify any marketing efforts that might be pursued. But in managing the situation, the call flow helped create a framework for the call, reaffirm the concept with the customer, redirect the focus to the real numbers of people being helped, clarify that a marketing tool could still help this surgeon, explain what had to happen next to turn this problem/complaint into a successful solution, and finally, close for agreement. 

Call flow and a carefully worded apology enabled the manager to take the offense, reframe it, and gain agreement from the surgeon to place his emotions attached to the offense in a neutral place and see the event as a missed opportunity, which required him to rethink his use of the product in light of the market disruption caused by his peer. 

A blunt apology would have been ineffective at best

Let me give you another example. As I explained in another chapter, I requested a transfer to a new sales territory. A very good rep was having his territory split. He had made a very wise strategic decision to focus his efforts in the big city at the expense of this outlying geography, which was hard to cover effectively. Upon taking over the newly created territory, I asked him to list the surgeons there. I set appointments and met with all thirty surgeons in the first thirty days. At the appointments, I started by apologizing for the lack of support our company had provided to date. I showed them a map of the two territories and explained both the split and the fact that the previous rep was making a very good business decision, which would unfortunately make it very hard for him to serve them well (this not only explained the split but also my reason for being in their office). 

It was the apology that got these meetings off to the right start. I got a chance to paint the problem my way while gathering their perspective and input. They were not pleased with the prior situation. But they appreciated the sincerity and logic supporting the assessment, diagnosis, and prognosis of future success. 

Elite execution demands that you be a knowledgeable and expertly nuanced consultant who knows how to carefully defuse discontent, anger, mistrust, and anxiety stemming from misunderstandings, disappointments, and failures