Service Recovery
Service recovery is the action a
service provider takes in response to service failure. By including also customer
satisfaction into the definition, service recovery is a thought-out, planned,
process of returning aggrieved/dissatisfied customers to a state of
satisfaction with a company/service.
Service recovery differs from complaint management in its focus on
service failures and the company’s immediate reaction to it. Complaint
management is based on customer complaints, which, in turn, may be triggered by
service failures. However, since
most dissatisfied customers are reluctant to complaints . service recovery attempts to solve
problems at the service encounter before customers complain or before they
leave the service encounter dissatisfied. Both complaint management and service
recovery are considered as customer retention strategies
Top 10 Reasons for poor customer service and their solution
1. People are not trained. When an organization does not spend the time to
fully train their people the consequence is poor service.
Solution: Dedicate resources (time and money) for training and
reinforcement. Employees should be fully informed about company
goals, the products and services. Emphasis and training should be focused
upon the importance of listening and responding to the customer’s requests.
People can only do the job if they are given the right tools and
objectives. It costs money to train people. It will cost more if
you decide not to train them.
2. People don’t care. Selecting the correct personality is
crucial for your business success. Apathetic or self centered personality
types have no place in a business that requires customer contact.
Solution: Focus the selection and evaluation process to identify
personalities that do not fit the required profile. Get the wrong people
out immediately, it also sends a clear message to everyone.
3. Sabotage. Angry or frustrated employees can actively work to sabotage
and try to destroy the company.
Solution: Keep honest and open communications with
employees. Informally and formally review performance, goals, objectives
and feelings to stop potential problems before they reach the customers.
Get these people out of the front lines immediately.
4. Employees don’t believe in the company, product or service. If the image, marketing and
promotion of the company is quite different from the reality, workers will not
be able to sustain a positive attitude in the face of problems they know exist.
Solution: Be honest. Work closely with
customer service, marketing and quality control to identify real problems and
fix them. Don’t let marketing advertise over problems, solve them.
5. Personal problems reflected in work. When an employee’s personal life is
in crisis or out of control, they may exercise control, aggression and
negativism toward customers in an attempt to put some part of their life in
order.
Solution: Clear communications with employees:
If their personal life is affecting work performance, talk about it. Time
off, access to counseling or just listening may prevent more serious problems.
6. Burnt out. Too much negative, too many complaints can
lower a person’s level of commitment and move their positive and helpful
attitude to an apathetic one.
Solution: Constant communication helps to identify
who is burning out and why. Get customer service people together to talk
of success and how to deal with the frustrations. Provide recognition or
incentives for excellence in dealing with problems.
7. Not providing the correct solutions to customers, lack of
empowerment.
There is nothing worse than dealing with an employee who listens to a problem,
then shrugs and says they have to ask someone else in the company to intervene
and provide a solution.
Solution: Give the people on the front lines the authority, power,
tools and ability to solve problems.
8. Don’t see the benefits – don’t understand their role in the
company.
Solution: Employees project an image of the company. They are
the company. They should be reminded of their importance and value to the
customer and to the company. Incentives, recognition, training and
constant reinforcement are important.
9. Apathetic from hearing the same problems over and over. A fundamental role of the customer
service division is to provide constant feedback on how customers view the
company, the products and the service. If this feedback is not analyzed
and acted upon by upper management a feeling of apathy and frustration is
created.
Solution: Set up a model and procedure for the
accumulation, analysis and implementation of solutions for the problems
identified by customer service.
10. Incentives/salary not tied to results.
Solution: If you insist that the company depends
upon people, and that people are the key to success, implement compensation
packages, evaluations and incentives that support and reinforce this.
The
Four Steps to Great Service Recoveries
Train your employees to respond to each
service failure with a specific stepwise sequence:
1. Apologize and ask for forgiveness: A real apology,
not a fakey fake “I’m sorry if you feel that way.”
2. Review the complaint with your customer: turn
your customers, in other words, into your customer service consultants, letting
them explain what’s gone wrong in the customer experience in the customer’s view and what you should do to fix it.
3. Fix the problem and then follow up: Either fix the issue in the next twenty minutes or follow
up within twenty minutes to check on the customer and explain the progress you
have made. Follow up after fixing
things as well, to show continuing concern and appreciation.
4. Document the problem in detail to
allow you to permanently fix the defect by identifying trends.
