In my upcoming book on customer service, the main premise is that customer service has to be in the DNA of the company. It’s not a “bolt on”.
Most people think that good customer service is satisfying a customer complaint. Yes, but great customer service is anticipating when a customer will be unhappy and satisfying it before they complain.
Two great examples happened to me this past:
A few weeks back, I was stuck on the ground for 7 hours trying to get to Portland. I had to reroute my trip as a result. I did not complain to American Airlines– I took it in stride. The next day, I received an email from American apologizing for my troubles and adding 6,000 miles to my account. While 6,000 miles is really worth less than $100, the point was they were monitoring my travels and apologized before I could complain!
Last weekend, I was at a party for my aunt at a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant. While serving my meal, the waiter spilled food on my pants. As soon as he did this, he said that he would be back with his card to pay for the cleaning bill (even before I had a chance to open my mouth). He promptly came back, handed me his card, and asked for my address so he could also send me a gift certificate as well!
So how does anticipation work? The company needs to have good systems in place to track your customers activities and purchases. With this in place, you will be able to see when things go wrong. Secondly, empower your people to fix customer service problems when they happen and not respond to it after the fact.
Couldn’t agree with you more! I just had to return a pair of jeans to Lucky because they fell apart after two months. I had to go through two trips to the store, talking to the manager and asking to speak to the district manager before getting what I should have received the first visit – a new pair of the same jeans sent to my house. The staff was nice and tried to be helpful, but Lucky’s return policy (I assume dictated by corporate) makes them powerless to make me happy as a customer when something goes wrong. If the sales staff had been able to say “oh, well this isn’t right! Would you like a new pair of jeans or your money back?” I’d be singing their praises now instead of complaining. A little more flexibility on Lucky’s part would have allowed the staff to make me a bigger fan, as opposed to someone who’s not inclined to shop there anymore. What a wasted opportunity!
@Kathlyn
Yes, a wasted opportunity!
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