I have discovered that one unhappy customer who is treated rudely will tell ten other people about the incident, but she will not - generally speaking - tell anybody who can do anything about the problems, namely the supervisor of the individual with whom she was dealing. The sad thing is that those ten people who have been told about the problem will, on average tell five other people. Put your pencil to it. That means these are fifty people who have heard your name and your company’s name in a negative way. it doesn’t take an awful lot of unhappy customers to put a company out of business and halt the career of the employee.

When you treat a coworker rudely or thoughtlessly, the same principle is in effect. Generally speaking, he will tell 10 other coworkers who will turn around and tell five more. Even in large organizations, it doesn’t take long for you to establish a negative reputation.

The procedure for coping with these problems is very similar to that used for handling other customer service problems. The minute a problem arises and you become aware of it, deal with it all possible haste. Typical customers (internal and external) are not interested in excuses; they’re interested in a solution to the problems. They don’t want you making excuses or blaming someone else. They’re not interested in fixing the blame - they’re interested in fixing the problem! if you will quickly apologize for the inconvenience and/or delay and get busy working on the solution, you will take giant strides toward building a solid “internal” reputation.

Find out what it will take to make your valued peer happy and bring the solution to the problem. Once the problem is “fixed,” check back in a day or two to make absolutely certain the “fix” was permanent and the coworker is happy. A week later, a handwritten note will score lots of points. The reality is, the aggressive, professional manager will capitalize on those opportunities to “win friends and influence people.”

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