Business: How to Keep an Angry Customer
- Robert Pennington
- Jun 18, 2018
- 4 min read
What is the biggest barrier to gaining loyal customers? A business can be bringing in incredible numbers of new customers, but if the business cannot retain customers, or have repeat customers then the company is not really growing.
Recently I was offered a part time job as a Customer Retention Manager. As I weighed my options and contemplated what would be involved in this position I began to think about what is involved in customer retention. Having repeat customers is a must, and with Yahoo!, Google+, Yellowpages, and other directory services that offer customer feedback, it is imperative that your customers respect your business.
For a company to earn respect from its customers, there must be a certain code of conduct and ethics that the company adheres to. The customer must feel that the company will be committed to fair treatment, and doing what is right by the customer. If a business does not hold themselves to a high standard of honesty and what is right, then a customer has no reason to trust them.
"If a business does not hold themselves to a high standard of honesty and what is right, then a customer has no reason to trust them."
The importance of customer retention (or customer feedback followup) was illustrated to me through an interaction with a car dealership. My newly purchased vehicle needed to have a recall service done at the local Ford dealership. The nice thing about the town I live in is that there are two separate Ford dealerships, so capitalism is very much alive. I had waited for months to have the parts finally reach the dealership for my truck, and once they were received I made my appointment immediately. I waited patiently, like a child on Christmas Eve, for my appointment to come. However, when I arrived to the service department at Ford, I was greeted with “what’s your name? Hmm, what is your VIN number and phone number? Sir, it seems that you are not only not on our schedule for today, but you are nowhere in our system. The parts are not available for this job, but we can put you on a waiting list.” Absolutely not, I had been on a waiting list for over 6 months, and I knew for a fact I made an appointment and kept the appointment with extreme punctuality.
So to Yahoo! I went. I wrote a detailed one star review, sharing my experience and how my appointment magically disappeared and that I had driven 30 minutes early in the morning on my day off just to be turned away. Still, I was angry about my experience and determined to never return to that dealership. I did not have time to take off of work another day to get this recall done, and I definitely do not have time to waste on people who do not accurately keep track of their appointments. Two hours later I receive a call from the General Manager. He said “sir, I understand that our service department dropped the ball on you this morning. I wanted to personally apologize for this mistake, and work with you to reschedule that work doing anything possible to make it convenient for you.” I explained to him that I cannot spend the hours in the waiting room that the job required, since I already wasted a day off trying to get this done. He replied with, “I understand your schedule is very busy, and we have made your schedule more difficult. We are not required to give out a loaner car for recall work, but I would be willing to make sure you had a car ready for you when you arrived for your appointment this time.”
"In a society that is so professionally advanced, this ability to simply take responsibility for the downfalls of a company is frighteningly rare."
This made me unusually excited. What had this company just accomplished that so many businesses today have zero ability to do? First, they took responsibility for their mistake. They did not try to cover it up, belittle it, or shift the blame onto their customer. In a society that is so professionally advanced, this ability to simply take responsibility for the downfalls of a company is frighteningly rare. The old-fashioned American cheered inside as I saw one of my childhood taught character traits, taking responsibility for one’s actions, was still existent in this world. The second thing this company did that so many companies miss was taking a step forward to make things right. So they realized that they made a mistake, which hurt the trust of their company, and on top of that they were willing to make exceptions to their rules in order to show their customer that they had their back.
Take responsibility, own your business’ mistakes, and make peace offerings with your customers that are significant enough to counter their negative experience. This is the magical recipe to customer retention, customer feedback management, and customer satisfaction. Most reasonable customers will realize that no business is perfect. With that being said, they desperately want to see the company make strong effort towards protecting their customers, and doing right by their customers. By taking great bounds to prove your company adheres to morals and a strong ethical policy, you will ensure that almost all negative customer interactions can be redeemed and restored. Your online presence will become more positive, and your happy customers will do all your advertising for you.
"Take responsibility, own your business’ mistakes, and make peace offerings with
your customers that are significant enough to counter their negative experience."
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