I recently had an encounter that prompted me to write this article on the importance of taking responsibility as a business. I found my experience buying some plants so frustrating I thought I’d share it in the hope someone out there finds it useful.

The story went as follows: I had ordered two small blueberry bushes to my house from the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society), a very well known and respected brand among those with a green thumbed bent. Unfortunately, they don’t carry out the deliveries themselves and instead use a third party courier company.

Despite offering a ‘tracking’ service, I was totally unable to work out where the bushes had been left after receiving a text telling me they had been delivered. Following a call from a neighbour, I discovered that the bushes had been abandoned in a puddle about half a kilometre away. The boxes, marked ‘HANDLE WITH CARE’, bore the scars of neglect, left torn and battered.

The whole situation left me feeling infuriated, not least because I ended up being almost an hour late into our office as a direct result of dealing with the delivery. As you can probably imagine, I submitted a complaint to the RHS, and their response left me utterly bewildered. Instead of taking any semblance of responsibility or trying to empathise with me, they blamed the courier company and just about left it at that.

I probably don’t need to tell you that I will be in no rush to use their services again and have even gone to the trouble of writing this article about them. My point really is this, problems happen, it’s inevitable in business as in life, and it really has never been more important to resolve those issues well. Passing the buck and blaming someone else is easy, but it will never leave your customers feeling satisfied.

What happened to me with those bushes really wasn’t the fault of the RHS, but you can bet that’s who I’ll be left resenting after they totally failed to resolve my issue. And it’s their brand that will shoulder the blame as a result.

There really only is one acceptable way to handle complaints, which is to be bold and face the music. Accept responsibility and do everything in your power to help out the aggrieved customer. Do that and the bad reviews will mostly go away.

So, a complaint might not be your fault, but it certainly is your responsibility. It’s so important to deal with it as such.