Service recovery: Four Steps to Increasing Customer Loyalty21

By John Tschohl

Over the years, I have addressed service recovery in thousands of speeches throughout the world. It is, I believe, one of the most important elements of customer service, and it can make the difference between success and failure for any organization.

I am amazed, however, at how many people—from frontline employees to senior executives—do not understand service recovery. If you don’t understand it, you can’t provide it.

Let me give you a real-life example of wonderful service recovery. At his wife’s request, Bob stopped at the Olive Garden Italian Restaurant in Bloomington, Minnesota, to pick up a salad to have with dinner that night. When he returned home and his wife opened the container, she discovered it did not include the dressing for which the Olive Garden is famous.

When Bob returned to the restaurant, the manager already had been made aware of the mistake and was waiting. He apologized profusely and gave Bob two bottles of dressing, a large dessert, and a $10 gift card. What was the result? Bob and his wife happily enjoyed their salad and dessert and are looking forward to using their gift certificate.

They also told many of their friends about the incident—not focusing on the mistake the Olive Garden had made as much as what the manager had done to make up for it. The actual cost of what the manager gave to Bob and his wife was negligible; the word-of-mouth advertising the Olive Garden received for it was priceless.

This is what service recovery is all about. It is turning a negative situation into a positive one and sending the customer home thinking he has just done business with the greatest company in the world.

Word-of-mouth advertising is the most powerful advertising you can get—and it costs you nothing. It’s common knowledge that most of us, before making a purchasing decision, ask friends and coworkers for referrals. What they say is very influential, because they are people we know and whose opinions we trust. So, when someone asks Bob to suggest a restaurant for lunch or dinner, you can bet he will recommend the Olive Garden.

On the flip side, people who have problems with a company and do not have those problems solved to their satisfaction tell anyone who will listen about their negative experience. And they often do so via social network. Before an unsatisfied customer even walks out of your business, she can be sharing her dissatisfaction via her smart phone to hundreds of friends on Facebook, for example.

Every company, no matter how good its products and employees are, occasionally makes a mistake. It’s how you handle that mistake that makes the difference between earning a customer’s loyalty and driving that customer away. When a customer comes to you with a complaint, take these four steps to ensure that you provide the type of customer service that will keep him coming back to you:

1. Act quickly. Do whatever you can to solve the customer’s problem on the spot. When you send that problem to someone else—your supervisor or manager—the customer becomes frustrated. That frustration escalates with every delay in reaching a solution. If you can’t solve the problem within a matter of minutes, you’re in trouble.
2. Take responsibility. Don’t get defensive and take the complaint personally. And don’t challenge the customer. Instead, be empathetic. Offer a sincere apology. You might say, for example, “I am so sorry. I understand why you are upset. Let me see what I can do for you.”
3. Make an empowered decision. Know the boundaries of your authority so you can solve customer problems and complaints. Make it clear to the customer that solving her problem is your priority.
4. Compensate the customer. When you offer the customer something in the form of compensation, it does several things. It makes her feel valued. It makes her think he just did business with the greatest company in the world. It increases his loyalty to you and your organization. And it creates positive word-of-mouth advertising.
In the case of Bob and his experience with the Olive Garden, he and his wife told all of their friends about their experience. And they are looking forward to using that $10 gift card. That is what service recovery is about: satisfying your customers and making sure they return to you.

What Is The Difference Between Hospitality Excellence and Mediocrity?

By Doug Kennedy January 3, 2012
Like most trainers, I frequently engage participants in interactive activities that hopefully shift their paradigms. With one such activity, I give participants a list of like-hotels in a location they’ve never been to, and then have them each place a group sales or reservations inquiry call. Afterwards, each participant reports back to the overall group on their experiences and observations. Recently, while training the reservations team of a four-star hotel, the results were especially interesting when two participants in particular described their call experiences. The first participant had a glowing report for the agent she’d spoken with, and raved about how he was so enthusiastic and hospitable that the participant actually felt bad about not booking with him! Interestingly, the second participant reported the polar opposite experience in calling another four-star hotel in the same area, as her agent did little more than check dates, quote rates and described rooms as being “your basic hotel room with one or two beds.” It is interesting to see how two different hotels within the same location, serving the same hotel market segment, recruiting from the same labor pool, and probably paying about the same base wages can have such extraordinarily different levels of hospitality and guest service. How was it that these two employees of similar hotels performed so differently that day? Was it luck? Did we just happen to catch their best employee at their best time of day? Or was it a factor of the choices the employees made that day? Two alarm clocks went off at approximately the same time of morning. Two employees woke up and readied themselves for their workday. Both traveled about the same distance, to work about the same shift, for about the same pay. Yet one employee made the choice of delivering hospitality excellence to the best of their ability in every guest interaction that day. The other made the choice to do their job exactly as it is outlined in their job description; doing nothing more and nothing less. So why is it that associates at some properties make the choice of hospitality excellence while employees elsewhere choose to be average, or to put it another way at the risk of being blunt - mediocre? Is it that one hotel has a better luck of the draw when hiring new staff? Do they have a better applicant screening process complete with pre-employment testing and peer interviewing? Or is it more a factor of the overall culture that starts with ownership and executive level management and is reinforced daily at the supervisory level? Based on my observations as a hospitality industry trainer, it is more than a mere coincidence that some hotels can succeed in even the toughest labor markets, while others squander in mediocrity even where the unemployment languishes in double digits. Instead, hotel guest service teams that make “extraordinary” guest services experiences an “ordinary” and daily event tend to have: Owners who are willing to invest in the physical product and the technology systems necessary to facilitate service efficiency. It is hard to deliver hospitality knowing you are about to sell a guest a sub-standard accommodation, and just about impossible to satisfy guest needs without the proper systems support. Engaged, involved leaders who lead by example under the tightest of scrutiny. Real-world operational standards don’t exist in training manuals; they are set by managers who can be observed in action themselves creating hospitality excellence daily! Interestingly, these same managers treat both employees as well as their guests with authentic warmth and generosity, the hallmarks of hospitality. They know that hospitality starts in the heart of the house when they greet their first staffer in the back hallway upon entering the building. Managers and supervisors who coach versus command. Great hotels have supervisors that closely observe each employee transaction, and who know the job well enough to help each staff member tweak, revise, and maximize their performance. Even the greatest so-called “superstars” all need continuous coaching to maintain hospitality excellence. Visionary leaders who see the actual level of hospitality and guest service as it really is being delivered daily in the lobby. They don’t relay on the opinions of one quarterly mystery shopper inspection report, nor post-departure guest surveys, nor TripAdvisor reviews alone, nor any one metric to tell them where service is at. They observe firsthand how guests are treated and how efficiently things are working (or not). Managers and supervisors who pitch-in during inevitable bottle-necks. The best managers always seem to appear at just the right moment when the staff is nearly overwhelmed; they not only provide that extra set of hands to get you caught up but help you gain confidence that things will work out. I can still recall how over two decades ago as a bellman of a golf resort I greeted the PGA Senior’s Tour Bus only to watch all the famous golfers parade off the bus and directly into their rooms, leaving the absolute biggest pile of luggage and golf bags imaginable for our team of just two bellmen. Minutes later there was our Resident Manager taking off his suit jacket and humbly asking our bell captain “How can I help you guys get through this?” Leaders who honor and understand the frontline perspective. You can always distinguish visionary leaders in the field of hospitality by the way they talk about their frontline employees. Those who appreciate them the most speak with respect, admiration, and appreciation. Those who don’t just complain about how hard it is to find good people these days, and that “Millennials just aren’t motivated.” Indeed, it is a thin line – a razor thin line - between hospitality excellence and mediocrity that employees in our industry traverse every day. In the end the same number of hours are worked, the same number of calories are burned, and the same wages are received. Yet those who choose to walk the path of hospitality excellence are rewarded daily as well. While their counterparts elsewhere go home each night complaining about how many rude and nasty guests there are out there these days, those who make the choice of hospitality excellence enjoy their work everyday, and mostly go home raving about how many nice, interesting, and appreciative guests they met that very same day in the very same area as the competitor down the road.

EL MUNDO DE LAS QUEJAS

Antes o después, quiérase o no, a las puertas de la empresa se presentarán clientes disgustados por algo que ha hecho o dejado de hacer la empresa. La forma como se gestione el contacto y los resultados finales que se obtengan constituyen, sin dudas, la “prueba de fuego” de la atención al cliente de cualquier empresa. Todo dependerá de la forma como el personal de contacto con los clientes o “primera línea” reciban y gestionen las quejas y reclamaciones de los clientes.

Nótese que en los casos de atención habitual a los clientes, éstos llegan a la empresa, en el peor de los casos, en una actitud neutra. En el caso de una queja, el esfuerzo a realizar es doble que el normal, ya que, primero, es necesario inducir al cliente a abandonar una actitud negativa (bajo cero en el nivel de satisfacción).y, luego, hacer todo lo que sea necesario para conducir al cliente a una posición positiva (la más alta posible en la escala de la satisfacción). Y en ocasiones, no es fácil, pero hay que hacerlo.

Pero, la eficaz gestión de una queja o reclamación reviste mayor importancia de la que usualmente se le asigna, ya que una queja recibida en la empresa es el reflejo de una realidad mucho mayor, tal y como lo han comprobado en Technical Assistance Research Programs (TARP), una entidad de los EE. UU. que disfruta de prestigio a nivel internacional por la precisión de sus investigaciones, la amplitud de las mismas y las bases formales y teóricas que validan su adecuación a las exigencias técnicas más estrictas. En la Figura 1 mostramos algunos de los resultados (verdaderos hallazgos) arrojados por las investigaciones realizadas por TARP.

Figura 1. Hallazgos de las investigaciones de TARP

1 Sólo la mitad de los servicios prestados satisfacen plenamente a los clientes.

2 El 30% de los servicios presentan algún tipo de problema para los clientes, pero éstos no lo expresan mediante una reclamación concreta.

3 El 15% de los servicios suministrados motivan reclamaciones escritas o verbales a otras áreas de la empresa que no llegan al departamento o persona responsable.

4 Sólo el 3% de los servicios prestados motivan una queja por escrito (en la práctica, cada queja es un síntoma de la existencia de una insatisfacción mucho mayor).

5 El 92% de los clientes que se quejan y su queja ha sido resuelta satisfactoriamente a la primera vez, vuelven a hacer negocios con la empresa.

6 Cuando la queja ha sido resuelta de forma no satisfactoria, la tasa de los que vuelven a hacer sus negocios con la empresa baja a un 42%.

7 La tasa de fidelidad de los clientes que se han quejado y cuyas quejas habían sido resueltas satisfactoriamente es más alta que la de los clientes que nunca se han quejado.

8 Los principales motivos de quejas y reclamaciones de los clientes se relacionan con el servicio personal recibido por parte de algún miembro del personal de la empresa proveedora (no con la calidad de los productos o servicios).

9 Las razones de cambio de un proveedor a otro a otro son: 68 por ciento por motivos relacionados con la calidad del servicio y la atención al cliente; 19 por ciento por haber encontrado productos mejores o precios más ventajosos; y 13 por ciento por otros motivos que escapan al control de las empresas.

10 Por cada queja recibida de un cliente, existe una media de 26 personas con problemas y seis de ellos suelen ser graves.

11 La persona promedio que tiene una queja se lo cuenta a otras 9-10 personas (amigos, familiares, compañeros de trabajo, etcétera). El 13 por ciento se lo cuenta a otras 20 personas.

12 Las personas cuyas quejas han sido atendidas y resueltas se lo cuentan a 5-6 personas.

EL FACTOR CLAVE: LA ACTITUD DEL PERSONAL

Para lograr una eficaz gestión de las quejas y reclamaciones todo debe comenzar por la formación y concienciación del personal que las recibe. Para el personal de atención al público, una queja no debe ser motivo de irritación, frustración, “resabios”, ofensas y actitudes similares. La realidad es que, cada queja es un regalo que le hacen los clientes a la empresa. Un regalo que, entre muchas otras cosas, le permite a la empresa:

• Identificar los puntos débiles de la organización y/o su personal y tomar las medidas las correctoras correspondientes.

• Resolver los problemas con los productos, servicios, contactos, métodos y sistemas que generan insatisfacción entre los clientes.

• Iniciar acciones que le permitan recuperar los clientes disgustados, en vez de sencillamente perderlos sin siquiera enterarse de que abandonan la empresa y por qué lo hacen.

• Fomentar la lealtad de los clientes hacia la empresa, sus productos y servicios.

Es fundamental que se comprenda esta realidad con el fin de adoptar en todo momento una actitud proactiva ante las quejas, en vez de recurrir a las usuales posiciones defensivas e, incluso, agresivas. Como vimos en los resultados de las investigaciones de la organización TARP, cuando la atención de la queja no es la adecuada, las posibilidades de que el cliente vuelva a hacer negocios con la empresa, ¡descienden en un 50 por ciento! La situación es aún peor, cuando el cliente ni siquiera se queja y se va a la búsqueda de otro proveedor sin decir nada a la empresa, que ni siquiera se entera de lo que está haciendo mal… ¡y lo sigue haciendo!, creando más y más clientes insatisfechos.

Sí, definitivamente, una queja es un regalo. Y como tal debe ser recibida: con agrado, amabilidad, placer e, incluso, ¡alegría! Pero, existe otra razón aún más importante para recibir con agrado una queja. Cuando un cliente se queja, lo que, en verdad, le está diciendo a la empresa es algo como lo siguiente:

“Miren, he tenido un problema con vosotros, pero no deseo dejar de hacer negocios con vuestra empresa. Por favor, resuelvan ese problema y no me obliguen a irme a otro proveedor, algo que, en el fondo, no quiero hacer.”

Por el contrario, los clientes que no se quejan sencillamente se van directamente a otro proveedor, sin decir nada.

Por demás, los clientes, se sienten positivamente impresionados cuando una queja se resuelve satisfactoriamente porque les transmite la sensación de que tienen suficiente poder y sienten que son personalmente eficaces, capaces de resolver sus problemas. En realidad:

Una queja no atendida o mal resuelta constituye, en el fondo, un atentado contra la integridad y auto-estima de los clientes, que se sienten no sólo afectados por el mal servicio recibido, sino también ofendidos y atacados en los niveles más íntimos de su personalidad.

El pensamiento que queda latente en la mente de los clientes es: “Para esta empresa, ¡yo no soy nadie!” ¿Podría esperarse que un cliente con esa percepción se convierta, luego, en un cliente debidamente fidelizado? Debemos convenir en que este es un resultado muy difícil de lograr.

Figura 2. Los 16 pasos de la metodología para la gestión de una queja

1 Recibir la queja con agrado.

2 Antes de reaccionar, preguntarse…

3 Mostrarse de acuerdo con el cliente.

4 “Enfriar” al cliente.

5 Hacerle saber al cliente que comprende cómo se siente.

6 “Empatizar” con el cliente.

7 Escuchar, escuchar, escuchar.

8 Dejar hablar al cliente.

9 Convertirse en embajador de la empresa.

10 Si el problema se debe a un error de la empresa, admitirlo abierta y francamente y excusarse.

11 Reaccionar de inmediato.

12 Elaborar, junto con el cliente, una solución justa para él y para la empresa.

13 Asegurarse de que la segunda vez todo funciona a la perfección.

14 Re-establecer la relación. .

15 Seguimiento.

16 Análisis.

Ahora bien, además de entrenar y formar al personal de contacto para que adopte una actitud positiva ente las quejas y reclamaciones, es necesario dotarle de un instrumento eficaz para gestionar el contacto conflictivo. Nos referimos a una:

5-Star employees - Part 1

Jul 22, 09 By Bryan K. Williams

One of my previous articles was about "5-star leaders", and those types of leaders are committed to only one standard: Excellence. They expect nothing less from themselves or from their team. While it is important to describe excellent leadership, it is also important to describe another key piece of the service excellence puzzle...the "5-star employee". 5-star employees are equally passionate with excellence and take great pride in engaging their customers with purpose-driven service. I can still remember the exact moment when I realized that there was a difference between an employee and a 5-star employee. At the time, I was a banquet server in a luxury hotel and was given a tray of hors d'oeuvres to serve the guests. The chef stopped me before I served the first guest. He asked if I knew what the hors d'oeuvres were and how they were prepared. It became immediately clear that I only had a vague idea of how to describe the items. The chef then looked at me directly in the eyes and said, "You are NOT a professional". Those words forever changed how I viewed service delivery. After that one-sentence from the chef, I went back to the kitchen and thoroughly acquainted myself with each hors d'oeuvres' name, ingredients, and preparation. When I returned to the banquet function, I saw the chef, pulled him to the side and thoroughly explained each hors d'oeuvres. He then said "Now, you are a professional". Being well prepared is the first step to serving with excellence. 5-star employees are consistently well-prepared, purpose-driven and passionate about their work. In fact, over the past several years I've had the good fortune of serving in various capacities and have focused on eight very specific service commitments. Collectively, they are called "commitment to engage my customers", and are now available on a pocket card exclusively on www.engagemenow.com Here are the first four commitments:

Five Star Employee Part 2

Aug 24, 09 By Bryan K. Williams

Recently, I called a well-known hotel and asked for the concierge desk. Although I was not a guest at the time, I previously stayed at this particular hotel chain several times prior and considered myself to be a loyal customer. The reason I called was to merely get some quick restaurant recommendations. The concierge advised me that since I was not a guest, she could not assist. Even after I advised her that I am a loyal guest that has stayed at the company's hotels several times before, she repeated her stance. Sure she may have been doing what she was told to do by her supervisor, or perhaps she was unaware of how easy it would have been to make some recommendations (after all, she could have also recommended the restaurant in her own hotel). Maybe she just didn't care. That same concierge could have said she would be happy to assist and inquired if I was celebrating a special occasion. Then, she could have made a few recommendations and offered to give me the phone number of the restaurants. The latter approach would have reinforced my expectations of the hotel chain and created more opportunities for me to refer others. In 5-Star Employees Part 1, I wrote about four commitments that world-class service employees share. Here is the fifth commitment: Commitment 5: I will make you feel special, included, valued, and appreciated The concierge that I wrote about did not understand that EVERY customer is priceless. The provision of engaging service should be inclusive and be just as important for those who are "potential" customers. Commitment 5 means that 5-star employees must look for every single opportunity to win the hearts of current AND potential customers. Any customer who is in the vicinity of a 5-star employee should feel his or her passion to serve. Let's assume that I go to a shopping mall and walk into a retail store. I then ask the store employee for directions to the food court. The eagerness of that employee to assist may cause me to return to that store to shop and possibly refer it to others in the future.