Control Internal Conflicts With Email

I had an interesting experience when I started working in technical support.

In one instance, a customer had contacted me for some technical advice on repairing their system. It was nothing major. Their system had experienced some downtime and the local tech team had repaired the system.

However, they were looking for additional ideas on how to address the cause of the problem and prevent future downtime. So they sent me an email asking for my input.


I emailed a response to the customer, providing him with some ideas based on my experience with some of the systems I had in my territory. I also copied the person responsible for technical support in the customer's territory as well as the application engineer, the technical lead responsible for all site activity and the technical liaison between the account manager and the customer.

I didn't think much of the interaction until I received a copy of my email message from the application engineer along with his message, lambasting me for getting involved. According to him, the correct way to handle the situation was to forward the request to him and let him address it.

The challenge I had with his course of action was that the customer had attempted to contact him several times regarding their questions and had failed to get a response each time. That's why they sent the question to me.

Instead of immediately sending him an email aggressively defending my actions and pointing out that he should have initially responded to the customer, I stopped and let his email "rest" for a while.

It gave me time to see things from his perspective as well as from the customer's perspective. It gave me time to understand that we both wanted the same thing where the customer was concerned. And it gave me time to decide on the direction and outcome of the conversation.

I then composed a message essentially stating I was sorry and that I didn't mean for the situation to turn out that way. I explained that my main concern was for the customer, to insure that they had a good impression of the company, and that they had correct and timely information that would allow them to continue to use our equipment. I then stated that I was sorry about the misunderstanding again, and I supplied my contact information if he needed my assistance in the future.

I then sent the email message along with the entire email trail off to him, and I copied myself and my manager.

I didn't get a response from the application engineer.

I did, however, get a response from my manager who commented, "This is an extremely well written email! Where did you learn to do that?"

By taking some time to think about my response, I was able to create an email that defused the situation, I had picked up some recognition from my manager, and I had supplied a response to the client that maintained our credibility.

Later, in one of my long road trips with my manager down the Oregon coast from the airport to a customer site, he told me his impression of managers and management. He said that good managers aren't the people that have been assigned by the executives or sport a title. He said that good managers are good at managing themselves, responding to situations instead of reacting to them.

When answering email, take the position that everyone is your customer. Respond to their message instead of reacting to it. Quickly design the outcome you want and the direction you want to take the relationship before responding to a message and your customers will appreciate the effort.

To find more ideas on dealing with all types of customer situations, check out the tips from the Dale Carnegie Training site.