No company is perfect. It’s simply a fact, not an excuse.
That is why it is important for businesses to realize that the way they handle customer complaints is just as important as trying to provide great service in the first place.
Customers and clients are constantly judging companies for service failures. First, they judge the company on how it handles the issues and then on its willingness to make sure similar problems don’t happen in the future.
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Most companies limit service recovery to the staff that directly deals with the customer. Often customer service sorts out the immediate problem, offers an apology or some compensation and then assumes all is well.
But in the end this approach is damaging because it does nothing to address the underlying problem, ultimately guaranteeing similar issues will arise.
What businesses should be doing is looking at service recovery as a mission that involves three parties: customers who want their complaints resolved; managers in charge of addressing the concerns; and the frontline employees who deal with the customers. All three must be integrated into addressing and fixing service problems.
Here are some quick strategies for real resolutions when it comes to improving service recovery:
- Create and apply a “service logic” – This should be a mission statement or summary of how and why your business provides its services. It should integrate the goals of the service, customers and employees. The result should serve as a guide both for delivering service and for help with service recovery.
- Draw attention to success – You can use in-house publications, intranets or training programs to share stories that emphasize your company’s values and culture. Just don’t forget to highlight the heroes of service-recovery stories.
- Collect and share data – Companies must gather more feedback about poor service, record it and make it accessible. This will help equip managers and other employees with strong information to be effective at resolving disputes.
- Measure employee performance – Positive reinforcement and incentives should be offered for solving problems and pleasing customers. Likewise there should be disincentives or demerits for poor handling of customer complaints.
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To learn more about how to improve service recovery, read the article by Stefan Michel, David Bowen and Robert Johnston this information was taken from.