By michaelpace on November 5, 2013
“Customers do not expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong” – Doug Porter while SVP at British Airways
Remember that time a company did not meet your expectations, or something broke, or you received sub-par customer service, or you were just having a bad day, and then something happened …
Something that moved you from “company challenger” to its biggest “champion”. You go from dislike to love, like a rocketship to the mailbox. Cupid’s company arrow struck you right through your wallet. We all have one; what was your most memorable service recovery kiss?
To quote two greats, Chip Bell & Ron Zemke, “Service recovery is the art of fixing what went wrong for the customer and mending the damage that error, mistake, or misstep did to your relationship with the customer. Service recovery is about restoring trust when your customer is most vulnerable to doubt.”
Service recovery is truly both an art and a science. It’s about both how you handle a customer who was impacted, and how do you spot them in a sea of customers. It’s about short term fixes, and long term proactive changes. It requires a special kind of associate, one who is empowered to do the right thing for the customer, while keeping the businesses best interests in mind, and can be consistent with process.
Below find a presentation on the Art and Science of Customer Service Recovery. Also be on the lookout for a full step by step article in this month’s Contact Center Pipeline.