Customer Retention - When Things Go Terribly Wrong

Even the best of companies can have a service failure. How these issues are resolved are key to customer retention. To paraphrase a line from Lilo & Stitch, "we are the ones you call when things go terribly wrong".

We are all human and therefore it is safe to assume we all make mistakes. What the recipient of a service failure needs most is validation of their concerns and correction of the error. Upon resolution of the issue, our Service Recovery Clients will call us to send a gift to their customer that includes a nice note. This reinforces the value of their relationship. The best part of our program, it doesn't cost a dime if you don't have any service gaps.

There is an excellent article from GreatBook that discusses Service Recovery Practices. Spot-on advice!

By the way, we are also the ones to call when things go exceedingly well!

New Customers Wanted - Current Ones Do Not Apply

Just the other day, I received a coupon in the mail for a discount at a business I have not been to in over a year. I have also seen similar coupons in mass mailers from this company and one of its competitors.

You must be a new customer or have not been a client for over a year to be able to redeem this 20% off discount.

Funny thing is that once you become a customer, there are no deals. What do you think this trains the consumer to do?