First, start off by understanding that the vast majority of salespeople are not trying to mislead you intentionally. Salespeople are not typically as well versed in a product as customer support is. Their talent is selling – something not a lot of support people are good at. They are taught by their superiors to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy. The result of the lack of knowledge and the want to please the customer is often what leads to trouble.

What happens is you, the customer, will ask a question that the salesperson does not know the answer to. Rather than appear unknowledgeable, which is a knife in the back of any potential sale, the salesperson will agree to any function of the product that sounds reasonable. They’re going to bend over backwards to make sure that a customer’s wish list is fulfilled, so they automatically assume that support will do the same. When customer support sets more realistic expectations your automatic reaction is betrayal and irritation.

So what can YOU do?

Immeadiately Call Customer Support

As soon as you’re done with the sales person, ask to be transferred to customer support or call them yourself. Find out the real deal, and clarify all the points your salesperson told you. If you’re not getting what you’re comfortable with, cancel then. No hard feelings.

It is highly unlikely that your salesperson will be involved or even interested in your account after the initial sale, so lean on customer support for any promises the salesperson might have made.

Consider the following scenario, which happens all the time at my current place of employment. I work at a company that provides website hosting and a site building program, among other things. Sales people often provide an exorbitant amount of help to the clients initially. If we were to continue to provide support at that same rate, our monthly fee would be much, much higher.

In that scenario, at no point did the sales representative lie. All the services promised can be provided, they just provided it at an expedient rate to enhance customer satisfaction. Remember again that this department has a very different mentality than other departments – so they don’t immediately see why there is, and should be, a difference in service.

Find Out About the Company

The most important factor here is how long they’ve been in business. If the company has been around for a fair number of years, you can bet that they’re doing something right with their product. Mind you, this doesn’t automatically mean that the product is right for you, but at least you should feel assured that the company as a whole is not in the game to deceive their customers.

Read All Contracts, Written Material and E-mails

Remember these things are provided to you for a reason. At least skim them. See if you see any discrepancies from what you understood or if this information raises any additional questions. If either is the case, don’t call your salesperson back, call customer support.

When to Complain

Of course, there are those representatives who are lying outright or at least lying out of ignorance. The sales department, by far, has the biggest turnover of any department no matter what company you’re looking at.  This is partially because it is a breeding ground for dishonesty, which is weeded out as quickly as possible, and partially because the environment is not something most people can enjoy for very long.

When you do hear an outright lie from a salesperson, bring it to the attention of that person’s superior. There’s no need for anger here, as it is usually an honest mistake. Ignorance can and will be corrected over time as the representative grows with the company. If the representative is dishonest, they will soon be unemployed.

As you can imagine, the extra dough gives you, as the customer, extra privileges. But to what extent, one might ask themselves. I give my clients a run down of what they can and can’t expect from me, but I can’t (unfortunately) give them a run down of what I expect of them. So here are a few pointers.

Time

The services I provide cost my clients an additional $199.95 a month. For most people, that’s a considerable amount., almost a car payment, so I can understand why clients think this amount entitles them to constant attention. However, let’s take the same picture from a different angle. Would anyone take a job that paid them $200 a month? Of course not. Right off the bat you can logically see that you are not entitled to 100% of anyone’s time on the clock, so don’t expect it.

Now, now, be nice!

Be considerate. Often, account types like these include several meeting times. If you make an appointment be considerate of your representative’s time. They have blocked out a bit of time in their irrefutably busy schedule to talk to you. Believe me, they have a lot of other things they could be doing. Talking to clients is very rarely productive work. I apologize, but it’s the simple truth. If you review your clients, if you have them, you’ll likely agree with me. I do a lot more for my clients when I’m not on the phone with them then when I am.

In that vain, if you have to cancel an appointment, please let us know. In this day and age, I sincerely doubt that your account representative doesn’t have an e-mail address. It takes nothing to type off a quick “Can’t make that appointment, sorry!” Remember your mother’s lessons. Do unto others, etc.

Also, when you call back don’t expect your representative to be ready whenever you are. It’s mind boggling to me how often a client misses an appointment and then calls at their convenience expecting to have their appointment right then. Treat this just like the doctor’s – if you miss an appointment, you have to make, you guessed it, another appointment.

Find out realistic expectations as to how your package works. In my business, managing my customers takes planning, so if one of my clients e-mails me unexpectedly, it might take me a couple of weeks to complete the work. Responding is a different story. In any case, I can only see it as reasonable for you to get a response to an inquiry within 24-48 hours. Completed work on the other hand is not something that can be done immediately – it’s best to know and understand that up front.

Questions

Do contact your representative whenever you have a concern related to the package you’ve purchased. Remember that they can’t know there’s a problem unless you tell them there is.

Do not ask “How many clients do you have?” It’s confidential, first of all. Secondly, there is no way the question is useful to you in any way. Most people ask this as a round-a-bout way to figure out if their representative can devote enough time to their account. Judge your representative on the reasonable results of their work, not an idealized list of what you think they should be doing. Speaking of which…

Do not ask “How much time do you spend working on my account?” This is another question without a useful answer. A lot of account management jobs are like my job and the answer is, it varies. Sometimes I take care of my clients in 30 minutes, sometimes in half a day. It depends on what I’m doing. I also know the overall value or weight of what I’m doing. Sometimes a quick maintenance can go a long way. Either way, the time will never sound like enough, so don’t ask. Again, judge based on the results.

Don’t Forget To Use All Your Resources

Do not forget the customer support team just because you have a personal representative. Different departments exist for a reason. Utilize all departments necessary of any company you employ. Asking a representative like me general support questions takes time away from what you’re paying me extra to work on (for instance), so why would you waste your money that way? Additionally, you’re saving yourself the frustration of talking to someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I can’t answer all the technical questions about my companies’ software. My stumbling over those types of questions potentially leaves my clients wary of my competency. When it comes to marketing, I am perfectly competent – and that’s what you’ve paid me to do. You’ll find that putting uncertainty into the equation often makes you needlessly nervous.

Do what the little yellow post-it says.

There are a couple of ways this can work, so your first order of business is to be aware. The first, and probably more common, way is the automatic billing. This means you provide a credit card up front and you’re automatically billed on the 31st day.

Now, I’m going to gloss over those of you who cried “SCAM!” after getting billed after one of these trials (to recap, 1)Keep reading after you see the word free, 2)If you didn’t do step 1, the credit card entry should have tipped you off) and go straight to the literally hundreds of you who groused to me every day about how we should wait until you called us to charge you.

On the surface, I can see what you’re getting at. The idea is we, the company, should do whatever is in our power to make it easy and convenient for you, the customer. This is exactly why you’re charged automatically after the 30 days. After all, the reason I had so many of you grumbling on the other end of my phone is that you had forgotten to cancel on time. It’s reasonable to think, then, that if you had wanted to keep the service you would have been even MORE likely to forget to call and let us know that. So, since we can’t have it both ways, which way do you suppose a company is more likely to lean – making it convenient for the customers that want to give us money, partake in our fine services, or those who aren’t interested?

Give yourself enough time for the cancellation to go through long before a charge even thinks about hitting your credit card. I know I put a lot of culpability on you, the customer’s, shoulders, but that’s because you’re the only one you can actually control. Of course, companies are not perfect. It’s quite possible the company you work with hasn’t ironed out the kinks in their cancellation process, or perhaps they have a sluggish billing team. Just keep in mind that your idea of proficiency is different from Joe Blow down the street so one of you is going to end up disappointed. Keeping track of the 30 day trial and when it ends is no one’s responsibility but yours, and honestly, in most cases the only one who’s going to get a headache over your hooting and hollering about your charge is – you. If a company has been around for any decent amount of time, it’s safe to say that there are more people happy with their service, their trials and the way they do business than are not.

I know you’re a busy person. Pardon me, but we ALL are. No one wants to spend a precious few minutes of our life on the phone. Remember you do have other options. A lot of companies are just as effective, if not more-so, by E-mail, and e-mail has the added benefit of being a hard copy of your request – never a bad thing. In the end, you can usually get a lot of value, absolutely free, out of a 30 day trial. Just be conscious of the date!

Why not ask why? I just told you not to ask! But I digress. There are several important reasons why “Why?” is a useless and counter productive question.

Often, there’s no reason.Technology is a wonderful thing, but random breakdowns, errors and bugs occur frequently. Anyone who’s owned a car, a computer, or even an electrical outlet can tell you things just happen. It sounds like a weak explanation right? Well, in truth, it is. So if you ask your technical support guru why some breakdown occurred, the answer might be vague and disatisfying. You’ve just made that technical support person look dumb in your eyes, making you distrust his or her competency. It’s the first step on a road to disatisfaction that you’ve paved yourself.

If there is a reason, you probably wouldn’t understand. I’m not trying to talk down to anyone here but, let’s be realistic. If you’re calling tech support, it’s likely that you don’t have a full grasp on the product you’re trying to troubleshoot with. The important part about fixing a problem is just that -fixing it. With technology it’s often best to just get on with your life. Do you really want an explanation with words that will make your head explode? “Well, you see what happened is the flux capacitor beta you got here has a .0345% chance to react to a techtspiromatic part romulo in an adverse faction…” Woa! In all of my years as a customer support rep, troubleshooting cell phones, programs, computers and documents, I never once understood WHY a glitch happened – but I sure could fix the problem.

Playing the blame game. I get that having a problem occur with a bit of technology is frustrating, we’ve all been there, but some people’s aims at asking “Why?” is to assign blame. In the midst of the anger produced by frustration, it’s natural to want to blame the company that created the project, it’s just not helpful or logical. First off, it is likely no one’s fault. Consider the following coversation between an irate customer and myself when our program glitched out and caused her to lose an hour or so of work.

Her: WHY!? Why did this happen? Your program is a piece of crap.
Me: I apologize for the inconvenience mam. I can assure you that this type of issue is not normal. It appears to just be a glitch.
Her: Why would a program glitch unless it sucked?
Me: Well, just like any bit of technology, sometimes a part just bugs out. There’s no way to predict when or how it will happen, but it is typically just a one time occurrence.
Her: That never happens with technology. I love technology. It always works, your program just sucks!

Even if it was the fault of the company, no company has a 100% track record. Being run by humans, mistakes are made. If you notice a consistant downgrade in service and product from a company, by all means consider taking your business elsewhere. If the glitches are occasional and the downtime minimal, by logical, not emotional, standards, then just see it as it is: just another day in our technology happy society.

It’s a sad, but typically accepted, fact of life that you’re not going to please 100% of the people you come in contact with. Businesses are no exception. Whenever you get in bed with a company, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to provide exactly what you need. But that’s the beauty of our consumer centered society – you have a choice. Believe me, no company is going to fault you for saying, “You know, I tried, but there’s just something missing in our relationship”.

Also keep in mind that no company is going to have 100% of what you want. Honestly, if I could combine McDonald’s fries, with Burger King’s Whopper and a Mr. Pibb from Chipotle (don’t ask me why it’s better there, it just is), I would have the perfect fast food meal. What’s the likelihood that I’m ever going to be able to get that meal from one place? Barring The Fast Food Wars predicted in “Demolition Man,” it’s not going to happen, not even at Burger King. So why, with different companies, would you expect a scenario like this?

When you’re told no, you can’t have it that way, here are a few options you have:

• Analyze. What is your current company giving you that other companies, who might have the feature you’re looking for, doesn’t? Would you be happier without the services that you’re currently receiving for the service that you’ve, thus far, gone without? If you would be happier elsewhere, go elsewhere.
• Find out your options. The better customer support representatives know the power of negative wording. Instead of saying “No, we can’t.” They should have said, “What we CAN do is…” But we both know that not every representative we come in contact with is going to be good at their job, so if they’re not forthcoming with any solution, probe. Ask, “What can I get instead of what I want?”
• Fill out a suggestion form. Believe it or not companies do listen to their customers a vast majority of the time. Your suggestion may be something that can easily be added to their list of services, just no one thought about it before. Or, you could be one of many customers that are interested in the same service. Chances are, if your request is reasonable, you may eventually get it, but only if the right people see it. Make sure your request is directed at the right people. If a suggestion form is not available, write to the president of the company.

What you don’t want to do is insist that the product or service you are being provided absolutely, without a doubt SHOULD be the way you think it should. In the end, this will only save you from unnecessary frustration.

I had a friend that had signed up with a particular Internet Service Provider, ISP, who he thought should provide him with more e-mail space than they were providing. He argued with them, literally, for well over an hour about why this made sense, and how many people he was sure wanted the same service. In the end, he ended up canceling his service, extremely irate and upset about how poorly he had been treated, and signed up with another ISP who provided the space he wanted. To this day, he struggles with the other ISP’s constant technical difficulties, something he never experienced with his first ISP. He refuses to go back though, because they could not see the logic behind giving him what he wanted.

Here’s the fallacy in his thinking. First of all, when a service is set up it’s fairly rare that, with the snap of their fingers, a customer support representative can change the internal structure of the service to provide you with something no one else is getting. Even if it was the most logical change in the world, it has to get approval from the higher ups in the company, it has to be programmed, it has to go through any one of hundreds of steps to happen. If a representative tells you it’s not a change that’s going to happen over the phone right then, it’s best to accept that answer, even if you take one of the above steps to rectify the situation.

Secondly, think about the outcome of my friend’s plight. In a fit of self-righteous fury, he created more work for himself. He had to find and set up a new service. Now, he has to deal with the frustration of technical difficulties on an almost weekly basis. Was insisting on having it his way worth it?

Believe me, we feel the same way.

In general, customers have two styles with which they bring a problem to our attention. The first is a monologue with what they think the problem is, what might have caused it, things they’ve already done, the breakfast they ate this morning and the last representative they spoke to a year ago who just wasn’t that friendly. By the time they’re done talking, my eyes are typically glazed over and my only question is, “okay, so exactly what is the problem?”

Take a lesson from Brad Pitt’s Rusty in Ocean’s Eleven, “Don’t use seven words when four will do.” In most cases, there’s no reason to tell your CSR that your great aunt sally had the same problem with her cell phone 2 years go and this is what they did. Instead, identify the problem in one quick sentence and take the call as it flows from there. Of course, with troubleshooting you’re probably going to have to provide more information eventually, but the issue should be introduced in as simple a statement as possible. Here are some examples: “I can’t get my phone off vibrate.” “My bill hasn’t come.” “There seems to be a mysterious charge of $79.95 on my statement from your company.”

This starting point gives you two immediate advantages. First, it allows your CSR to grasp the basics of what the problem is. Think of it this way. When you were in school was it easier to interpret the meaning of one sentence or Shakesphere’s “Hamlet”? Believe me, sometimes I thought interpreting “Hamlet” was easier.

Secondly, there is always the chance that the problem you’re having is global, or at least affecting a wide range of customers, and so your CSR already knows about it. You save yourself a lot of time by identifying the problem up front and then letting your CSR tell you what they already know. Either way, you’re saving yourself a great deal of frustration and time you might have to spend clarifying.

On the other side of the coin, you also don’t want to be too vague. I can’t tell you how many times my, “How can I help you today?” was met with, “My e-mail isn’t working.” Okay. It’s not as if e-mail is a one function program. “I keep getting an error when I try to send an e-mail” , “My buddy’s e-mails to me are being bounced” or “My spam blocker isn’t catching all those erectile dysfunction e-mails!” are all infinitely better descriptions to an e-mail problem.

Before you call, take a moment to figure out the root of your issue. State your case and let the CSR tell you what he or she needs from there.

Identity theft prevention is serious business, both for you, the customer, and for your customer support rep. Like anyone else, I know how frustrating it is to try to take care of a problem for someone else, only to be met with wall after wall, leaving you to cry to the heavens, “I was only trying to help!”

We know, but so are we.

One and One Make Two

Perhaps the most frequent of transgressors in this area of innocent identity theft are the spouses of the customer on file. This is business. All that flowery poetry over being two halves of the same whole only works over a candle-lit dinner or a passionate embrace. You may share an address, a last name, even that nifty toaster oven from Aunt Sue, but one thing a married couple will never share is a single identity.

Of course, there are different levels of security. You can probably get away with getting information from a cell phone plan under your wife’s name, but certain things like credit reports and credit information are an entirely different story.

I once had a woman e-mail me requesting information from her husband’s credit report. Of course, I politely refused, and explained to her that sensitive information like this could only be retrieved by the person. She repeated her request with increased fervor, telling me numerous times that with her marriage, she and her husband were one person in the eyes of God.

Finally I replied, I am not God. I can only give Mr. Bill Smith’s report to Mr. Bill Smith.

She called me a self-righteous bi-.

Okay. I understand that in most relationships, a husband would have no problem with a wife perusing thier personal information. An errant credit card debt is not what I was protecting in this case. Think about it this way. I had received an e-mail from a person identifying herself as Jane Smith. E-mails aren’t exactly difficult to get a hold of. There are countless free services letting you register almost whatever address you could think of. An e-mail baring the same last name as my customer tells me nothing. What if it wasn’t Bill’s wife Jane, but a true identity thief fishing for information. Sitting on the other end of a computer terminal, I have no way of knowing.

“Max … or is it Maxine?”

If you are one of those people with an ambiguously gendered name or voice, I’m truely sorry. Nothing can be more aggravating than someone calling you Mam when you’re a sir, or refusing you access to your own information because you don’t sound like Mr. John Brown.

The fact of the matter is, on a daily basis most customer support reps will get a fair few calls from male voices for a female’s account, or vice-versa. To us, you’re just a voice on the phone. No matter how infuriating it may be, there will be times when your rep will have to deny your request pending more information. Honestly, I would rather risk offending you and protecting your private information, than giving it out with the possibility I’m giving it to someone you wouldn’t want to have it. Annoyance aside,which would you prefer?

Tips For Account Set Up – Protect Yourself Before We Have To

• Don’t let someone else set up your accounts for you. Remember that to a company, the customer on file is who they’re going to protect. So many problems arise when someone who was once just trying to help becomes someone with the perfect tools to harm. A Realtor let her partner set up her website for her. It was his credit card on file, his name on the account. She paid him each month instead of us. When they parted on bad terms he locked her out of her account. Though it was her who put all the work and money into the site, we had no choice but to protect him
• If you know there are people in your life who are willing to make a phone call for you, and who you trust let your company know as well. Most companies have the ability to list authorized contacts for the account, saving you and your helpful partner time and frustration.

 1. We can hear EVERYTHING – Okay, I admit that this one benefits the CSR’s whose ears you are innocently assaulting, but with the things I’ve heard over the years I can’t help but think that people just don’t realize how much comes in through our headsets. You might be surprised how many phone calls are accompanied by the beautiful background music that only the bathroom can offer. Try explaining the technicalities of a cell phone bill with someone crunching potato chips in your ear. Have you ever wondered why you got a slightly colder tone from your rep when you got back to the phone? It’s because we could hear you beating the snot out of your kid.

 2. There are such things as stupid questions - When it comes to getting service, there are such things as stupid questions. These are questions that serve no purpose other than to hinder the speed and thoroughness of your answer. One obvious example is, “Are you new?” This has been aimed at many a CSR who either a) Gave the customer an answer he didn’t want to hear and so he assumed that the person must be incorrect or b) the rep IS new and therefore sounds a little uncertain. In either case this question serves no purpose other than to be rude to a person who you’ve called to help you. If you’re not sure an answer is correct, ask instead for more information, a little proof. Asking an old hand if they’re new usually puts that person on the defensive, making communication between you difficult. Ripping apart a newbie only serves to make them more nervous and less likely to remember all the information they need to help you. In either case, the situation typically ends with you having to start all over again with a different rep wasting your time when you could have just asked a more productive question.

3. Don’t Stereotype - Personally, I think this one should be a life tip, but I digress. Communication between a customer and a CSR is roughly like an American tourist asking directions in France.  Both sides speak English, but one of us isn’t willing to admit it. Stereotyping your rep based on gender or ethnicity only serves to add another hurdle that needs to be jumped before your situation can be resolved. The last two years I worked as a technical support rep for a company that hosts websites. How many times a day did I hear “Can you transfer me to technical support?” when I answered the phone. The implication here is that these people thought I was a receptionist. Immediately, before I’ve even gotten your name, I’m on the defensive and you’re uncertain that I’m qualified to be giving you technical support.

One of my former managers is named Sabiha. She was in New Accounts, a team that assists customers through the initial start up process. As part of her job, she had to talk to her customers at least once to walk them through the basics of their website. She had a customer once that would not respond to e-mails trying to set up an appointment. Finally, the customer e-mailed in saying that she didn’t believe she and Sabiha would be able to understand each other and could she have an American rep. Sabiha is American and has a perfect command of the English language with absolutely no accent. This customer wasted 2 weeks of her time and her 30 day trial because of an assumption.

4. Remember we’re professionals - There are certain rules that society has when it comes to interacting with men and women, young and old. These rules should not prevent you from viewing your CSR as a professional. I had a customer once immediately request to speak to a male representative when he heard my voice on the phone. Besides making me angry, this lead to about five minutes of me attempting to explain that I was just as qualified to help him as every male in the department. As it turned out, the customer hadn’t wanted to show me this website whose design he wanted to emulate because it had a picture of a woman showing off her scantly clad derrière.

One of my friends once forbade his girlfriend from going to her chosen OB-GYN because he was a male.  He said that obviously, this man must be a pervert. Now, in normal society you probably would object to another man putting your girl’s legs up in stirrups. But a doctor is a trained professional looking out for the health and wellbeing of your significant  other. Most people would agree that in this case, the rules can be bent. The same should be said of any professional. Remember that we don’t live in a world of black and white, and let your representative help you. It’s what they’re paid to do.

Ready?

The customer is almost always wrong.

Since you’ve been hearing the exact opposite all of your consuming life, let me give you some credentials, if you will.

When I was 18 I worked for ConsumerInfo.com, otherwise known as FreeCreditReport.com. For all of you who just scoffed and said, “Free credit report my ass!” you would be one of the legion of the wrong. For those who haven’t had the pleasure let me explain. You can get a truly, 100% free credit report from FreeCreditReport.com. The vast majority of the calls I received in the 2 years I worked as a customer support e-mail and phone representative focused on one thing.

“You bastards said it was free, and you charged me!” Bait and switch was thrown around a lot. So was the word scam.

For the moment, I digress. Let me tell you where I wandered after I left ConsumerInfo.com. I spent the next year doing customer support for an alarm company that I won’t name, and I’m fairly certain you haven’t heard of them anyway. They were relatively small time players, and I believe they’ve since thrown in the towel.

From there I spent 6 months each doing customer support for AT&T/Cingular/AT&T, and a fancy bath fixtures company. I’ve been at my current company for about two and a half years now and while I’m FINALLY done with customer support (sorry, can’t say that I miss it), I did answer phones and e-mails for Realtors whose websites my company hosts.

I’m like McDonalds over here, 15 billion customers served. One wicked case of headset hair later, the universal truth is that the customer is almost always wrong! The problem lies in the fact that they’ve been told over and over again that just by the virtue of being customers, they must be right.

In the ever wise words of Jedi Master Yoda, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” The reasoning here is simple. You can’t be open to a solution or explanation your hapless customer support rep is going to give you if you go in with the preconceived notion about whatever you think the problem is.

Remember the supposedly free credit report and the extremely peeved customers who were scammed? They were all wrong. There was no scam. Essentially, every single one of them had read the words “Free credit report!” and then had conveniently forgotten how to read. The rest of the website, save the one sentence, was entirely about the service ConsumerInfo.com provides: the credit monitoring system. You got a free credit report and 30 days, cancel anytime. It was all there in plain English on the homepage as well as on the sign up form, ABOVE WHERE THEY REQUEST YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO. I don’t mean to yell, but honestly, even if you missed the whole homepage, one would think that as you’re happily typing in your credit card number, you might be concerned as to why.

I tried to explain countless times, after I’d processed a full refund (no questions asked), but time after time my customers worked themselves into a tizzy of curses and ranting. That can’t be healthy. I guarantee you they hung up the phone with a foul taste in their mouths, convinced and traumatized that they’d been taken when in actuality they’d made a mistake in not reading what they were signing up for and I’d issued a refund within the first 5 minutes of what turned into a 20 minute call.

How about the 4-5 Cingular customers I’d get every day who called to dispute the random charges on their teenager’s cell phone. “My teen would never run up text messages like this!”

Um, yea. They would.

“No, I already asked her, and she swore that she didn’t do it.”

She lied.

When I spy a random charge on my bank account or my credit card, my first thought is not “What’d they do!?” it’s, “What’d I do?” All being a constant victim is going to get you is frustration, anger and more time, which my customers always screamed was so valuable, out of your life. These companies aren’t out to scam you, or make your life miserable. Not to be cliche, but help them help you. I can’t help a person who’s telling me what the problem is and what the solution should be when reality dictates something completely different.

Swallow your pride, and at the very least admit that it’s entirely within the realm of believability that you made a mistake. The buck stops with you.