“Customer Recovery Strategy” (CRS) Design Characteristics
For Unsurpassed Customer Service
At the “Moment of Truth”:
- Focus on the 5-10 year ROI of the customer.
- Focus on your long-term image and reputation. (Remember, unhappy people tell 11 others; happy customers tell 4 others.)
- Empower the person at the “moment of truth” to be creative and innovative to surpass the customer’s expectations as to solving the problem.
- Provide expenditure authority to do the above.
- Ensure accountability = responsibility—at the “moment of truth.”
- Focus recovery on future business (i.e., 50% next time; free next time, etc.).
- Speed up the recovery—at the “moment of truth.”
- Develop a “Customer Guarantee” and live up to it/surpass it.
- Ensure your CRS deals with fast responsiveness, being knowledgeable, having empathy and sensitivity, as well as both the tangibles and intangibles.
- What else?
Five Levels of Recovery Strategy Mastery: Which do we do?
_______ 1. Deny it’s our problem. (I just work here.)
_______ 2. Fight their concern but eventually give in to them. (They won.)
_______ 3. Meet their expectations. (Customer is always right.)
_______ 4. Meet their expectations and then do something else beyond it that they don’t expect (including an apology).
_______ 5. Do #4 and fix the underlying system or process problem of which it might be a symptom.