Today’s guest blogger is Edward Caulfield, a service management professional with over 20 years experience in customer service management for high tech companies.

Not too long ago I was at a conference for Service Management. After signing in at the registration desk, I was given a small lapel pin with multi-colored blinking LEDs. As the father of two children, the first thought that ran through my mind was that my children, both of them old enough to no longer hurt themselves with a lapel pin and still young enough to go gaga over colorful blinking lights, would get a kick out of one of these. As anyone who has more than one child knows, it is dangerous to bring home only one of anything, so I asked if I could have a second pin and explained why. As rules would have it, only one pin was allowed per registered participant, even if the pins only cost fifty cents and the event cost me well over a thousand dollars.

I knew full well – as did the lady at the registration desk – that by end of the conference, she would have a hand full of extras that she would either throw away or stuff in a drawer to gather dust forever. Not a big deal, however. I was sure to find some other trophy to bring home. I was in Kansas and cowboy boots crossed my mind, with the challenge being translating my children’s European shoe sizes to US sizes. Within a few minutes of finding a seat in my first session and starting a chat with the fellow next to me, someone tapped me on the shoulder and before I knew it, I had two additional lapel pins handed to me. That was nice, I thought. Then I thought some more and saw that it was more than nice, it was “Service Recovery.”

What relevance does this have to Service Management? There are several takeaways from this experience.

1) We all make mistakes every now and then, but it is never too late to go back to a customer who suffered under our error and make things right. Both you and the customer feel better for it. Because this happens so seldom, your customer may even remember you for life. As well, apologizing for your mistake mentally reinforces that you not repeat that mistake.

2) You don’t have to wait for an angry customer to do the right thing. When I didn’t get the lapel pin, I wasn’t upset. I didn’t express anger or even disappointment. Just because a customer doesn’t verbalize their disappointment doesn’t mean they aren’t disappointed.

3) Sometimes breaking rules is the right thing to do. Strictly speaking, I should not have received the additional lapel pins. In the end, the person at the reception desk realized that a happier customer is more important than sticking to a rule that, in the end, had precious little legitimate basis.

To learn more about Edward Caulfield, visit http://seriousaboutservice.eu//

© Gladys for , 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Customer Service, Edward Caulfield, http://seriousaboutservice.eu//, relationship management, relationship managemetn, service recovery

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© Lori for , 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Customer Service, handling complaints, service recovery

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One of our customers was doing a project that involved creating a marketing video to demonstrate the benefits of an alternative energy system. It was targeted to the government, specifically the military. While they had images of their own equipment and we were creating a 3D animated model of their system, they needed stock video footage showing members of the U.S. Army to fill out the program. 

One of our staff members investigated all of the options for military footage, including several commercial stock footage library services. Basically, you pay for the rights to use the footage in your program for a specific purpose. The owner of the stock footage provides the images and assures you that it can be legally used.

Use of stock footage is a common practice in the video business and the processes are standard.  You go online and pick the scenes you want to purchase, submit your credit card information, and you either download the footage or the company lays it off onto a videotape or disc and sends it to you.  

In this case, we ordered the disc and the company sent it to us. The only problem was that the disc was completely blank when it arrived. Oh, well, mistakes happen, so we called the company. The project manager explained to man who answered the telephone that we would need a new disc.  ”Hmmmmm,” he said. “It sure looked like it was copying onto the DVD when I did it.” No apology and no explanation. We also found it rather interesting that he owned up to the fact that he hadn’t checked the disc before he shipped it. Weird. 

A few days later, the program was finished and life went on. Or so we thought. Actually, when the bill arrived, we found two shipping charges on our invoice for $50 each.  One was for the blank disc and the other was for the disc that had the footage on it. Of course, we didn’t want to pay for the first shipping charge, so our project manager called the company back. 

“That’s petty,” the man who had originally handled our project told her. “It wouldn’t have been blank if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to get the footage. I would have had time to check it, if it hadn’t been a rush.” 

We were floored! It was our fault that this man had made a mistake? We should eat a $50 shipping charge that wasn’t in our client’s budget because of his sloppy work habits? It was appalling, though he finally agreed to take the charge off of the bill. And the icing on the cake? He emailed our employee that had first made contact with him to tell him that our company was “petty” to ask for a refund of the $50 shipping cost for the blank disc and that he “won’t change (his) standard turn-around time to meet (our) company’s rush needs again.”

The whole occurrence was outrageous, actually, as this vendor always had the option of turning down our original request if he wasn’t able to provide the necessary quality control. Plus, it takes about three minutes to check a disc to make sure that the footage you believe you copied onto it is, in fact, on the disc. 

This company has no need to worry about changing his “standard turn-around time” for us, as we definitely won’t be calling him again for any stock footage. There are so many competing companies in his area of the business that it shouldn’t be a problem to find one that doesn’t blame their customers for their mistakes.

This was a great example of what not to do when you screw up. What should you do instead? Own it! Tell your customer what happened, then immediately set about making it right. Re-do the job, re-deliver the product – do whatever it takes. In fact, do more than it takes. If you handle mistakes with integrity and a strong commitment to giving your customer what they need, they’ll come back. And that’s what it’s all about anyway, right?

What do you think? Can you think of a time that you or your company made a mistake? Did your actions strengthen the customer relationship or hurt it? What could you have done better? What can you do so it won’t happen again?  

written by Lori Jo Vest on www.lovethemup.com

© Marilyn for , 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apologies for bad service, Communicating with Customers, correcting customer service mistakes, customer care, customer retention, Customer Service, customer service mistakes, Customer Service Problems, going the extra mile for customers, service recovery

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