5 Lessons I learned after receiving an emailed list of scathing feedback from a customer

My most difficult work experience is also one that taught me a lot about self-management.

I was a consultant in my early 20s, assigned overseas on a client site. I helped transition application support work from onshore to offshore. We had just completed all the knowledge transition sessions.

A week after, I received an email with a huge list of scathing "feedback".

It was from an executive director of our main user group (my client's customer). And it was a laundry list of feedback and issues "that has occurred since support moved offshore." I wanted to crawl under my seat and hide.

But, I persevered and here are 5 lessons that I learned from the experience:

Lesson 1 - Don't reply while triggered.

I went through a roller coaster of emotions - ashamed, embarrassed, angry, indignant, sad, etc.

I drafted a reply until I noticed that my tone was defensive and dismissive. Luckily, I realised before sending it that it will be an unproductive response. I deleted my draft and decided to take a walk around the block instead.

Lesson 2 - Ask for help.

Despite my shame and fear, I asked my manager (who wasn't copied in the email) for help.

With guidance, I was able to look at it from the customer's perspective. It was possible that they were having a lot of issues even before the transition. The change to offshore was an opportunity to review and get them resolved.

Lesson #3 - Have a dialogue. Listen with an open mind and heart.

My manager and I met with the executive director and her team face-to-face.

I had to let go of my defensiveness and approached them with openness and curiosity. We took the time to get to know them a bit and then ask them how they are feeling about the issues they have raised. We found out that their team has been experiencing a lot of performance issues for months!

This is resulting in missed KPIs, hence the frustration.

Lesson #4 - Observe your users. Take the time to understand the problem.

With permission, I spent time shadowing 3 account managers to understand their reality.

I listened to their customer calls and watched as they performed their tasks. It was a real eye-opener and it resulted in a heap of notes for me to analyse and investigate. I saw for myself the pain they had to go through to complete their work.

Together, we were able to identify a few solutions to try and see if they can reduce some of their problems.

Lesson #5 - Get regular feedback.

We then set regular check-in sessions where we:

• Reviewed the actions taken.
• Analysed if the action we took was effective.
• Identified our next step.

I also took it as an opportunity to ask for feedback in case they observed something else outside of the issues or actions already identified.

My irate stakeholders became my partners to resolve the issues. And despite the challenges, we enjoyed working together. That was the start of my realisation that transformation happens when there is tension and conflict.

We fixed some of the systemic issues. But, most valuable for me was my personal transformation from the experience.

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