“A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you’re talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who’s gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes.” Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) in Casino.
I worked for Third Party Administration (TPA) firms and employees would screw up. Sometimes, the bosses were transparent and sometimes they just wanted to bury that problem.
As someone who loves transparency and tries to practice it all the time, you need to be open and honest with clients about when things gets screwed up, and how you will fix it. You can’t just find a hole and bury problems, because the fear that the hole will be found, is just too great. Customer service is most important and not being open and honest with the customer isn’t a great service. No matter the issues, most clients are reasonable. Your reputation is everything and being honest in fixing errors your company caused, actually helps it.
