ARTIC LE

Turn “Oops!” into Opportunities:

Six Service Recovery Secrets

to Help You Bounce Back Higher
Unhappy customers are opportunities, not hassles. Instead of looking at them as
something you and your employees have to “deal” with, find ways to “bounce back”
into unhappy customers’ good graces. Learn how several well-known businesses are
already doing just that. By Ro n Kau fman

We’ve all been the recipients of terrible
service. Haven’t we?
Struggling to convince a stone-faced cashier
that we deserve a full refund on a product that
broke the minute we removed it from the box.
Waiting (and waiting and waiting) for a
repairman who never arrives.
Fuming in a hard plastic airport chair at 2 a.m.,
reliving the airline rep’s smug refusal to comp
us a hotel room after our flight was canceled.
If you haven’t experienced these infuriating
scenarios, you’ve surely borne the brunt of
similar service “fails.” As you think back on
a particularly bad one, can you feel that old
sense of rage, helplessness, and disbelief
welling up all over again?
Now ask yourself, Do I want MY customers to
ever feel this way about MY company?
Of course not! And when you master the art
of service recovery, they never will. When your
company messes up (and we all do from time
to time), you absolutely can “bounce back”
into the customer’s good graces. In fact, you
can bounce even higher than you were before.
Yes, missteps and complaints can be big

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opportunities.
Customers who
struggle with a
service problem
have been to a
low point with
you. And when
you “make it
right,” their
experience of
disappointment
followed by relief
can actually
increase their confidence in you.
Why? Because they’ve learned something very
important that they couldn’t have possibly
known before. Now they know, from personal
experience, that you can be trusted to do
the right thing when they really need it. That
translates to loyalty and repeat business.
Companies that get recovery right know
some important secrets about the true nature
of service, what people value, and how to
learn from mistakes. Here are six of the most
powerful:
SECRET # 1:
A GREAT recovery is one that
makes the customer FEEL RIGHT
(even when he’s wrong).
LUX* Resorts, an emerging global brand in
the high-end hospitality business, knows all
about making customers feel right. Here’s
an example: A honeymooning couple was
checked into a room without a sea view and
the husband complained to the front desk.
However, the “room category” that they had
booked was at a rate that did not include a full
sea view. Clearly, the customer had erred, not
the resort.
However, LUX leadership knew nothing was to
be gained by making the guest feel “wrong.”
Rather than pointing out that he had not paid
for the higher room rate, the resort responded
by writing a personal note signed by the
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general manager,
including a
generous offer:
We do appreciate
your desire to
enjoy a full sea
view room during
your honeymoon
vacation. Certainly
on this joyful
occasion the
beauty of your
surroundings means a lot to you, and to us.
While we do not have any rooms available
in the higher-rate “full sea view category”
at the moment, we will have one room with
a gorgeous sea view available on the last
two nights of your stay, and it will be our
pleasure to upgrade you for the final two
nights of your stay, with our compliments and
congratulations on your wedding.
In the meantime, it will be our pleasure to
refresh the fruits and flowers in your room
daily, to ensure that the beauty you have
found in each other is reflected in your
surroundings here at LUX* Resorts.
The resort could have brushed the guest off.
After all, he was getting what he had paid for.
Instead, ignoring that the guest’s bad feelings
were not their fault, the resort managers
opted to do everything they could to make
sure he felt great about his entire stay.
SECRET #2:
Be more generous than you have to be.
When something goes wrong, most
companies will fix their mistakes, maybe issue
a partial refund, or perhaps give a percentage-
off coupon for the next purchase. In other
words, they do pretty much what’s expected.
Not Zappos. It lives up to its motto “Powered
by Service” by going above and beyond the
minimum. Consider the following customer
anecdote:
I have never been a Zappos customer before.
My first order was a set of specialty glassware
for my sister. (Today Zappos sells a lot more
than shoes!) The order arrived with one of
eight glasses broken. The easy “fix” would be
for Zappos to send a replacement. But here is
what happened instead.
With one phone call to one representative for
less than five minutes, Zappos replaced the
broken glass (the fix). They also refunded me
the entire order “because it caused so much
disappointment” (showing concern). Finally,
the Wow factor, they sent my sister a $40 gift
card for a future order. This was unexpected
but of value as she could choose whatever
she wanted to buy. Did Zappos earn two new
loyal customers? Yes!
The recovery process was simple
and fast. No layers and approvals
to work through. Not only did
the phone call take just a few
minutes, but confirming emails
arrived to me and my sister
within minutes.
Did Zappos lose money on this
recovery? Only in the short term.
After all, the result was a happy
customer (the gift giver) and
happy customer’s customer (the gift receiver),
who, now armed with a gift certificate, will
become a new Zappos customer. Not a bad
return on investment, huh?
SECRET #3:
It’s never too late to recover.
At Tamassa Resort, the new general manager
did something that truly shocked the
company’s former disgruntled customers.
He combed back through complaints and
low TripAdvisor scores from five years prior,
and one by one started to call each of these
guests to make a personal connection.
He explained that he was the new general
manager, how sorry he was about the past
experience, how the resort had substantially
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improved their service, and how very much
they would be delighted to welcome these
customers back again. He even extended to
them a complimentary night accommodation
as a special gesture.
Not only were these customers amazed
to be hearing from the resort five years
after an incident, they were truly touched
that someone was making the effort to
reconnect. A surprising number did visit the
resort again and became happy and loyal
guests. Many others, recognizing the change
of management and the special effort, went
to the online TripAdvisor site and voluntarily
removed their earlier “low star rating” of the
hotel.
Proof from Tamassa Resort that it’s never too
late to follow up!
SECRET #4:
Get the fix done fast.
Okay, it’s not really a secret that customers
want mistakes and breakdowns corrected
quickly, but few companies emphasize this
feature of their service. Wipro Ltd., a global
technology services company, has made
speedy recovery an important part of their
brand. The company is a great example of how
to execute and coordinate service recovery
quickly and efficiently.
When something goes wrong on a customer
site, the technical support team shifts into
hyperspeed. Their pride in fast response is
matched by a capability to instantly dedicate
resources to solve a problem. In the rare
cases when escalation is required from
field technicians to the head office, Wipro
has developers, domain experts, and senior
managers on standby at all hours to help.
In fact, Wipro uses the image of a team
of firefighters rushing together to quell an
inferno to symbolize their commitment to
fast recovery response. This lets customers
know the company is always ready to respond
to an emergency situation. It also reminds
employees that this is an aspect of service
their customers truly value.
No one wants a technology platform to go
down, but from time to time it does happen.
Wipro customers know the recovery to full
functioning will be done FAST.
SECRET #5:
Get more value from mistakes
by sharing them.
Many companies act as if they want to forget
their mistakes as quickly as possible. Not
eBay. Here, mistakes are routinely debriefed
in cross-functional teams to determine what
went wrong and how to improve.
Due to the complexity of the business, things
sometimes go wrong, and yet no one in
particular is to blame. Rather than treating
such problems as flukes, eBay created a
weekly “review” process that allows for total
focus on recovery and improvements with the
saying “It was no one’s mistake, but it was a
failure.”
eBay’s “approach without reproach” policy
quickly aligns the whole team to focus on
what went wrong and what can be done
better in the future. It’s a great way to build a
culture where it is okay to make a mistake and
learn.
SECRET #6:
Encourage employees to “throw the ball.”
(It’s better to take service risks than to
play it safe.)
In an interview featured in the New York Times
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article “Steven Mollenkopf of Qualcomm: If
You Don’t Know, Just Say So” by Adam Bryant,
CEO Mollenkopf spoke about the essential
freedom to make mistakes when achieving
progress.
My dad was also the coach of my sports teams,
including basketball. When we were driving
home and he would critique my play, he would
always say, “You should make mistakes by
throwing the ball away, not by holding the
ball.” I say the same thing to people today.
[In the context of work] It means make
mistakes by taking action, not by thinking
about something or being timid. You want to
encourage yourself to take risks. If you make a
mistake trying to do something, you can fix it
later.
In other words, don’t be afraid to go out on a
limb for customers and don’t encourage that
fear in your employees. Encourage them to
be creative with service recovery. A great way
to do this is to give internal awards for “Best
Recovery Effort,” “Fastest Recovery Response,”
“Best Lesson Learned from a Mistake,” and etc.
When your organization has a track record
of doing the right thing in problem situations,
like all of the companies you’ve just read
about, then every member of your team can
serve with confidence and pride. Knowing
your organization will always bounce back up
is a powerful reason to feel good when you
are serving and when you are recovering.
“A stiff apology is a second insult…
The injured party does not want
to be compensated because he
has been wronged; he wants to be
healed because he has been hurt.”
G ilbe rt K. Che ste rton
 Ron Kaufman , UP! Your Service
founder and chairman, believes service is the
essence of humanity. He has helped companies
on every continent build a culture of uplifting
service that delivers real business results year
after year. Making transformation his mission,
Ron is one of the world’s most sought-after
educators, consultants, thought leaders, and
customer service speakers on the topic of
achieving superior service. He is the author of
the New York Times bestseller Uplifting Service
and 14 other books on service, business, and
inspiration. Ron has been featured in the Wall
Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA
Today. To learn more about Ron Kaufman,
please visit www.RonKaufman.com.

UP! Your Service enables

organizations to quickly upgrade service
performance and secure a sustainable advantage
by building an uplifting service culture. Its
methodology aligns, integrates, and accelerates
organizations in three essential areas: Service
Leadership, Service Education, and The 12
Building Blocks of Service Culture. This proven
approach leads to an action-oriented culture
empowering everyone to delight customers
and colleagues with consistently uplifting
service. Under Ron’s leadership, the UP! Your
Service team has enabled uplifting service
within government agencies and multinational
corporations including Air Mauritius, Suncorp,
Xerox, Nokia Siemens Networks, Marina Bay
Sands, NIIT Technologies, and other leading
global organizations. To learn more about
UP! Your Service, please visit
www.UpYourService.com

Enquiry@UpYourService.com
UpYourService.com
Singapore Office USA Office
Tel (+65) 6309 9668 Tel (+1) 302 309 0047

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