When a company makes a mistake, it can be the brightest moment in their history.

Toyota had that opportunity. But they missed their moment. Big time.

How a company reacts, removes the pain, and repairs the emotional connection shows the true colors of that organization more than almost any situation they might encounter.

My husband and I ate at one of our favorite restaurants a few nights ago and were astounded by the incredibly poor customer services skills of the on-site manager.  It was a rather curious situation and I honestly believe that a third grader could have handled things better than this guy.

When I purchased my printer several years ago, I bought a three year extended warranty. Unfortunately, last week, just as I was about to print out handouts for a presentation the next day, my printer died and I found out exactly what “warranty” meant.

I spent a fair amount of time recently on TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Yelp, and other websites offering hotel reviews. A majority of those reviews were written by hotel guests whose experiences were either very good or a very bad. It seems that when guests have an ordinary or typical experience, they’re not as motivated to write a review.

Think about how we often describe our customers. We might label them as difficult, angry, rude, uninformed, arrogant, etc. (Sometimes we use terms like friendly, warm, engaging and so on.) On one level this seems useful. It might help us decide how to handle certain customers in specific situations.

But labels can also cause problems.

Saying “sorry” is not admitting defeat. It’s admitting you’re human. Customers like that.

Beloved companies regularly practice this important peace process. It makes them grow.

Remember when you were a kid and your brother or sister punched you or pinched you? Sure, he or she apologized. But it didn’t mean much because a) your parent was usually prompting the words, and b) you’d been apologized to many times before, just to be punched again another day.

When things aren’t going quite right, it’s easy to take an emotional slide down the catastrophic “what if” tunnel, mulling over all the possible things that might go wrong.

* What if my customer gets angry when I give him the news?
* What if I get stuck with the bill?
* What if he tells everyone how upset he is with our company?
* What if the company goes under and I lose my job, my home and end up living on the streets?

Not long ago,  I wrote a post about a recent service recovery experience with Swiss Chalet.  I thought I would share the subsequent follow up I had with the manager of the particular store I mentioned.

The franchise manager called a couple days later because I had made a comment through their website about my experience. I thought it would be interesting to see how they reacted.

I admit I’m rather a demanding consumer. I’m pretty sure I get it from my mom. She’s one of the world’s all time greatest when it comes to being a demanding customer.

And I think it’s good there are people like us around. No one else can offer businesses the quality of advice that their demanding customers can. They should thank us.

Recently I went to the Royal Oak Farmers Market. I was happy to see that the wonderful folks from McClure’s Pickles were there again.

A few weeks ago I tasted their fabulous pickles and bought a jar. My husband and I were overloaded with goodies and the bag that dropped right by our car was the one that contained those pickles. The jar was smashed into smithereens and we wrapped it in plastic to get it to the garbage at home. The car had the wonderful aroma of pickles but we didn’t get to eat any.

Recently my wife picked up dinner for 4 on the way home from work. We had ordered online from Swiss Chalet (Canadian Rotisserie chicken franchise). Swiss Chalet is known for their dipping sauce, which is included with every signature meal.

When she arrived home, we discovered that the “special sauce” was not included in the order.

I called the order desk to report this lapse and the conversation went something like this.

Angry customers can seem like our worst nightmare. But, if you handle them right, they can be your company’s best friend. Because when you do listen to angry customers, you get a lot in return. Complaining customers often have valuable information about how you can improve your business. And, when you listen sincerely, you make it more likely they will stay with you.

Here are five things you can do to convert angry customers into valuable partners who will help you improve and promote your business.