Building Trust With Clients Through Accountability

Borrowed

"Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth—in other words, conforming our words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words—in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. This requires an integrated character, a oneness, primarily with self but also with life."

From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Interactive Edition by Stephen R. Covey [Book]

Learned

Barrel Account Manager:
Hey @lucas, the client let us know that a discount code was still active in their cart. This was set up during the custom cart project and wasn’t turned off when we shifted to the new cart setup. It’s deactivated now but has been used 18 times, allowing customers to add free items to their orders. The client is asking about its usage, and I’m wondering how best to position our response.

-

This was the Slack message waiting for me Monday night. A few hours had passed since it was sent, but I happened to open Slack to check on something else just as I was getting ready for bed. You might know that sinking feeling that came over me—the kind that comes when an issue pops up out of nowhere, especially when it might have negatively impacted a client’s business.

Earlier that day, this client had verbally approved an annual contract with us for next year. Great timing. My mind immediately started racing—was this going to make them second-guess their decision? I responded to our Account Manager and went to bed trusting we’d find a resolution and had built enough goodwill with the client over the past year to weather this.

-

Me:
Yikes. Can we confirm 100% that this was our error? Assuming it is, we’ll probably need to offer a credit or something similar to make it right.

Tech Lead:
Yeah, the logs show we created the discount during testing and it wasn’t deactivated after we shifted to the new cart system.

Me:
Got it. Are we sure these orders are legitimate?

Account Manager:
Yeah, they’re all real orders. Here’s a screenshot with the list of where the code was used.

Me:
Thanks. I’ll handle communication with the client. I want them to know we’re not taking this lightly. Does this email feel clear to you?

Hi [Client],

The team let me know about the discount issue in the cart.

It seems the discount was created during an earlier project and wasn’t turned off after we changed our approach. Unfortunately, it ended up being used on several orders.

We take full responsibility for this oversight and want to make it right by offering a credit on your upcoming invoice. Let us know what amount feels fair.

Apologies for the inconvenience—this isn’t the experience we want for any of our clients.

Thanks,
Lucas

Account Manager:
Yep! Looks good.

-

The client’s response:

Thanks for the clear response, Lucas and team. We appreciate the way you handled this.

Could you help us pull the list of orders where this was applied? We’d like to reach out to those customers—not to take anything back, but to acknowledge the situation and make it clear we’re aware.

Thanks again.

-

You can never be sure how a client will respond to a situation like this, so when I read their response, it was like a weight had been lifted. I wrote back offering some suggestions on how to turn the discount code mishap into an opportunity to engage customers and gather feedback.

When I was a kid, I remember learning the phrase, “honesty is the best policy.” I don’t recall who said it or where I first heard it, but it stuck with me. Moments like this remind me of why—it’s not just about saying the right thing; it’s about doing the right thing, even when it’s uncomfortable.

This isn’t the first time I’ve learned this lesson while working with clients—though thankfully it’s been a while—but it applies far beyond those relationships. Whether it’s navigating tough conversations with the team, a family member, or a friend, owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it always seems to move things forward.

You can’t always prevent issues from happening, but how you respond makes all the difference. In this case, the mistake couldn’t be undone, but taking responsibility turned it into an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.

It’s a reminder that building trust isn’t about perfection—it’s about how you respond when things don’t go as planned.

Thought

What’s a time where my integrity was tested and proved its value?