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.

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.

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.

It has been a crazy couple weeks, so I haven’t had as much time as usual to write. However, I have had a couple very positive experiences lately that I thought were worth sharing. Both have to do with accountability.

The first was with the Sony Store. Recently I purchased a Digital Voice Recorder and a package of rechargeable batteries for the recorder so I could re-charge the unit overnight (rather than replacing traditional batteries).

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.

In the business of customer service training and improvement, we talk about being honest and open with our customers. This is important. It builds trust and improves communications with our customers.

But sometimes  people take honesty too far. Sometimes it does more harm than good. Recently,  Paul Simon (one of my readers) shared some glaring examples of this:

“The customer service rep said she’d left early the day before.” (Explaining why she didn’t call him back sooner.)

Too often when a company (or person) fails at customer service, they run from the failure. They never return to the “scene of the crime”. I understand why. Most of us would rather move on to future successes than be reminded of past failures. But the best customer service companies take their failures head on. They fix them and they learn from them.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Encourage feedback from your customers

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

Direct, honest feedback from our customers is among the most valuable information a business can have. Yet most employees treat feedback like the H1N1 virus. They hope they don’t get it and they’d really like to have a vaccination against it.

Not all feedback is negative. But it’s all

Every now and then you’ll have a customer who disagrees with one of your policies. No matter what the policy is, don’t justify or defend it from your company’s point of view.

For example, maybe your service department has a fee for inspecting the products you sell. And unless it’s covered by warranty, the customer has to pay the inspection fee. If the customer balks at the fee, don’t justify the fee by saying: “Our technician needs to get paid for his time.”

“Every employee who deals with clients must have the authority to handle complaints.”

-Carl Sewell
Author of:  Customers For Life: How To Turn That One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer