Turning Frowns Upside Down

There are few things scarier in business than unhappy or dissatisfied customers. No company, no matter how good they are, is immune to this problem. Of course there are many preventative or proactive measures companies can take to reduce the number of unhappy customers, but nothing is fool proof. So, the question is what do you do when you encounter unhappy customers?  Is it possible to turn unhappy customers into happy customers? The answer is, of course! To illustrate this, I would like to share a personal example.

My morning routine includes me checking my email to see what I may have missed overnight. To my surprise this morning I had received several emails from one of my banks telling me that my statement delivery options had been changed from online to paper. This was very disconcerting to me because I had not made this change. So, I quickly tried to log on to my account and found that out that I couldn’t. By this point I was very frustrated and a little worried, so I hastily called my bank to give them a piece of my mind and find out what the heck was going on.

First, I have to say that this was around 6:00 in the morning and I’m grateful that someone was available at my bank to speak to me. This is pointer one – availability to solve problems lessens frustration for your customer. Secondly, the gentleman that answered my call was very professional and courteous. Pointer two- you catch more flies with honey. Third, he paid attention and then quickly acted. Enough said. Fourth, he solved my problem and acknowledged an error in their system. Now, I know that there are some problems that can’t be solved, but doing all you can goes a long way and yes admitting that you were wrong or that a mistake was made can sometimes work wonders too.

But, wait there is more. After he solved my problem he noticed that I qualified for their premier account which not only saves me money in fees but,  it also includes a lot of perks that I wasn’t getting before. So, not only did he turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer, he increased my loyalty to the bank.

This bank employee is what I would call a marketing asset. If you have employees like this, then you have nothing to fear. If the opposite is true, be afraid, be very afraid.

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