Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM FEBRUARY 2021 64 M any times I have to try hard to think of fresh topics to write about during the year. And then I experience something at the hands of a local service company that unfortunately gives me a new topic for my next article. Here's the latest story – you can figure out for yourself what went wrong in this service situation. A few weeks ago, I had an estimator come out to give me a quote on doing some waterproofing work at my home. I received the quote as promised and they scheduled the work for three weeks later due to their current scheduling. I stayed home on the day the work was scheduled and was told that the window for the work to be completed would be between 12 noon and 3 pm. So far, so good. Finally, at 3:30 I called the company since nobody had showed up, and I was surprised to be told that someone had already been at my home and couldn't do the work because of physical space constraints at the job site. I was home and never got a call or even heard the doorbell ring that afternoon. I called the company office that same afternoon. The gentleman on the phone sounded concerned and said he would find out what could be done and call me back. Never got a call back, so I called the same gentleman again at noon the next day and left a message inquiring as to what he'd found out about the situation. Finally, at 4:40 the day after I got a call from the guy who gave me the original quote who told me that he'd made a mistake on his quote, and the only solution now was to have the work done by hand at three times the original quoted price – and I would have to go back in line to have this work done in three to four weeks. What went wrong here? And what would you have done differently in this situation? I was powerfully reminded of the basics that we've all been taught for years about how to handle customer problems promptly, and how important it is to take corrective action internally after the fact. Here are the basic recommended steps for resolving a problem or concern: • Contact the customer immediately. Don't wait for them to call you. • If the customer calls you, indicate your willingness to find out what happened, then call them back within a designated and defined timeframe. Take ownership of the customer's problem and respond when promised, even if you don't have an answer immediately. Keep the customer informed. • If your company made a mistake, start by admitting it and apologize to the customer, then explain what happened. • Explain the recommended corrective action that you propose, or indicate the steps to begin investigating a workable resolution to the problem. • Get the customer's approval on your recommendation. • If the recommended action is not acceptable, always escalate the customer's concern to management. • Expedite the corrective action for the customer. • Follow up after the work has been done to guarantee total customer satisfaction. • Take corrective action internally to prevent this kind of mistake from happening again. • Make sure that the whole process happens as fast as possible. When you lose a customer because of a mistake or an unresolved problem on your part, make sure you've done everything possible to keep the customer and learn from the experience. We all make mistakes, and we should have a written policy to do everything possible to save every customer. Many times, if mistakes are handled properly, they can actually strengthen your relationship with the customer, because many companies will unfortunately just go on to the next job, since it's too much extra work to handle the problem properly. One of the important requirements on the Certified Service Center (CSC) application is a customer problem resolution policy with a focus on keeping every customer possible. If you do learn from your mistakes and handle all customer problems properly, you'll have a chance to save every customer possible. In this case, I will call another company to do the work, because on the steps listed above, this company got only 2 out of 10 correct. If a mistake is made, the customer must feel that you are concerned and that you'll go the extra mile to resolve their problem quickly. Usually that's all it takes to turn an angry customer into a continued, loyal customer. Never miss an opportunity to save a customer – they are all unbelievably valuable! S E R V I C E D E P A R T M E N T Don Pierson, Certified Service Center (CSC) www.certifiedservicecenter.org RO EXPECT MISTAKES. . . AND CORRECT THEM

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