Whatever It Takes
Posted by Nancy Porte on Thu, Mar 17, 2011
Every Friday morning I look forward to my cup of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. While I have three gift cards to their biggest competitor, I always go to Dunkin’ Donuts. Why? Because I can always count on great service. Well, almost always. Last week I walked into my local Dunkin’ Donuts, confident and looking forward to that great cup of coffee complimented by a pleasant experience. Instead, my abiding loyalty was tested. The service was unusually slow. The line was long and not moving at the usual pace. During my long wait, five people left without ordering and muttering their observations as they stormed out the door. When it was finally my turn, I mentioned to the person taking my order that it was unusual to see such a long line. She looked up and said that she was very sorry. They were training new people and therefore orders were taking longer. She immediately offered me a larger size coffee at no additional charge. While I was ready to be quite disappointed a few minutes earlier, I left the store satisfied and ready to return the following week.
Most of us spend a lot of time developing and monitoring customer-facing processes to assure high levels of satisfaction. However, not every process goes to plan. So, the flip side – and the step that is often forgotten – is how to recover when a process just doesn’t work.
Service recovery is defined as the ability to identify when the customer has been dissatisfied with an interaction and then to address issues to the customer’s satisfaction. However, service recovery doesn't just happen. An organizational culture must support the idea that customers are important and their voice has value.
The front-line staff needs to be empowered to take action immediately upon discovering the customer’s dissatisfaction. Customers don’t just want an apology; they also want to feel that they have been heard, that their stress and inconvenience have been recognized. Customers need to feel that the company genuinely cares that there has been a problem and is trying its best to fix it. So, what is excellent service recovery from the customer’s perspective? A problem resolved within a reasonable time, together with the reason for the failure and what is being done to make sure it doesn’t recur. Successful service recovery works best with empowered employees, a strong customer orientation and quick action.
Some customers let us know about their dissatisfaction during the transaction, allowing us to take action immediately. However, others complete the transaction without voicing their disappointment. How do we recover from something we don’t know?
Survey alerts are an effective way of identifying a less than satisfied customer and getting the right information to the appropriate manager. These alerts can be set to email a manager whenever a customer completes a survey and indicates a less than satisfactory interaction. The email can contain the rating, comments and customer contact information. This enables the manager to respond quickly and create a successful recovery. Some organizations take it one step further and provide a link back to a hidden question in the survey. In this question, the manager provides information about what steps were taken to improve the customer’s satisfaction. By creating this closed-loop process, the types of mediation provided can be tracked, trends identified and the result is continuous process improvement.
While customer satisfaction is best achieved by great initial service, loyalty is not lost when service failures occur and effective service recovery actions are taken. When customers are valued by an organization, it is part of the culture to make sure they are happy – whatever it takes.
Speaking of service recovery, I look forward to tomorrow’s ritual at my favorite Dunkin’ Donuts.