New Balance’s legendary UK Flimby factory has

3 Ways to Win Back Customers

Here what I found in studying the literature on customer service. There is plenty of material published on best practices and companies who excel in doing things rightgoing the extra mile, loyalty bonusesit runs the gambit. What I don see are customer service recovery practices to bounce back my own mistakes. How should I behave when my company hasn delivered, when I have dropped the ball?

Painful experience tells me that this stuff isn common knowledge. Many companies simply walk away, effectively firing the customer, when a recovery strategy could earn their loyalty for years. They simply don have any customer service quality practices to follow.

I developed three tips so that when your company finds itself in the unenviable position of having egg on its face, you wipe it off and gently dab with a napkin instead of adding ketchup and salt and making an ugly situation even uglier.

1. Own the mistake.

One thing that drives customers nuts and totally discredits you is to get defensive and blame everybody but your company. You spilled the milk, and you not only crying over it, you're blaming the cow. Empathically put yourself in the customer position. She hired or contracted with you and doesn want to hear about your problems with suppliers, delivery trucks, or acts of God. When you took her money you became responsible for the total solution, so behave like it. This is basic to customer service procedures to resolve customer complaints.

I had a 1993 Ford Explorer back in the late 90s, and if you remember the consumer news in that period of time, you know that this model was one of the vehicles with the notorious Firestone ATX tire stock from the factory. I picked up the car used and had Goodyear tires on it, so I was in the clear. Regardless of what you think of either Ford or Firestone as companies and irrespective of the purity of their motives, I was pleased to get a warning/recall notice from both Ford and Firestone. Each, I assume, dug my name out of registration records and contacted me. The Ford letter did not blame Firestone and make an excuse and then tell me to contact Firestone. No, Ford told me if I had those tires on my car to bring it in and they replace them. The Firestone letter said something similar, and even though I wasn Firestone customer (Ford was), I was an end user of their product and they stepped up and took ownership of the problem.

Contrast this to the company, who shall remain nameless, who was responsible for the high speed DSL line installation at my offices. I was told I have the connections in four weeks; it took in excess of six. I had to send new employees home to telecommute off their AOL connections because I couldn provide Internet access and emailnot exactly a desirable situation for me. This same company demonstrated the same state of chaos on the phone line cutover. There was no hesitation to enroll me in the plan and contract for my business money, but ask these jokers about the problem and the answers were astounding. It Verizon fault, because they didn cut over the lines, or they didn bring them into the building. We had a snowstorm last week. My dog ate my homework. This company seemed bent on convincing me it was of their control. Did the customer, me, give a rip? If you are whom the customer pays for the product or service, it ALL within your control. Don make excuses, provide solutions. Most of the time you can do this right over the phone.

3 Ways to Win Back Customers

Here what I found in studying the literature on customer service. There is plenty of material published on best practices and companies who excel in doing things rightgoing the extra mile, loyalty bonusesit runs the gambit. What I don see are customer service recovery practices to bounce back my own mistakes. How should I behave when my company hasn delivered, when I have dropped the ball?

Painful experience tells me that this stuff isn common knowledge. Many companies simply walk away, effectively firing the customer, when a recovery strategy could earn their loyalty for years. They simply don have any customer service quality practices to follow.

I developed three tips so that when your company finds itself in the unenviable position of having egg on its face, you wipe it off and gently dab with a napkin instead of adding ketchup and salt and making an ugly situation even uglier.

1. Own the mistake.

One thing that drives customers nuts and totally discredits you is to get defensive and blame everybody but your company. You spilled the milk, and you not only crying over it, you're blaming the cow. Empathically put yourself in the customer position. She hired or contracted with you and doesn want to hear about your problems with suppliers, delivery trucks, or acts of God. When you took her money you became responsible for the total solution, so behave like it. This is basic to customer service procedures to resolve customer complaints.

I had a 1993 Ford Explorer back in the late 90s, and if you remember the consumer news in that period of time, you know that this model was one of the vehicles with the notorious Firestone ATX tire stock from the factory. I picked up the car used and had Goodyear tires on it, so I was in the clear. Regardless of what you think of either Ford or Firestone as companies and irrespective of the purity of their motives, I was pleased to get a warning/recall notice from both Ford and Firestone. Each, I assume, dug my name out of registration records and contacted me. The Ford letter did not blame Firestone and make an excuse and then tell me to contact Firestone. No, Ford told me if I had those tires on my car to bring it in and they replace them. The Firestone letter said something similar, and even though I wasn Firestone customer (Ford was), I was an end user of their product and they stepped up and took ownership of the problem.

Contrast this to the company, who shall remain nameless, who was responsible for the high speed DSL line installation at my offices. I was told I have the connections in four weeks; it took in excess of six. I had to send new employees home to telecommute off their AOL connections because I couldn provide Internet access and emailnot exactly a desirable situation for me. This same company demonstrated the same state of chaos on the phone line cutover. There was no hesitation to enroll me in the plan and contract for my business money, but ask these jokers about the problem and the answers were astounding. It Verizon fault, because they didn cut over the lines, or they didn bring them into the building. We had a snowstorm last week. My dog ate my homework. This company seemed bent on convincing me it was of their control. Did the customer, me, give a rip? If you are whom the customer pays for the product or service, it ALL within your control. Don make excuses, provide solutions. Most of the time you can do this right over the phone.