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I found a nice little quote from Justin Seibert as quoted on the Marketing Genius blog.
“You only have two opportunities to make a good first impression. One occurs upon initial contact; the other occurs after you’ve screwed up (and fixed things).”
It’s a great quote for one simple reason – we all screw up. So if we all screw up, what’s the best way to deal with it when it does happen?
- Get ahead of the game. If you know there’s going to be a problem let the customer know ASAP. If nothing else at least it shows you know what’s going on. Keep the customer in the loop.
- Fess Up. Admit it when you get things wrong and customers are likely to be a little more forgiving and patient. They’ll appreciate the honesty.
- Listen. It’s hard to know exactly what the customer’s problem is unless you take the time to listen. A minor complaint may have been exacerbated by a poor response from staff when it was raised. The problem now is more likely with the treatment than the initial screw up.
- Don’t make excuses. There may be a perfectly good reason why things haven’t, or didn’t, go to plan – and you’ll be at pains to tell the customer all about it. But, be careful not to sound like you’re making excuses – in the end the customer doesn’t really care ‘why’ they just care about what you’re going to do to fix it. In a lot of cases it may even be the customer’s fault in some way. Don’t accept responsibility for things you didn’t do wrong but be sure to listen to the customer’s POV.
- Put it right and then some. Obviously you should put the problem right as soon as you can but go the extra mile and do a little bit more as recompense for the screw up.
- Follow up. Make sure to follow up with the customer to make sure they’re satisfied with the eventual outcome. Keep listening, you may think the issue has been dealt with – they may not.
As Marketing Genius points out, if you resolve screw ups well then they can actually become a positive talking point and a great source of word-of-mouth.
