Turning Problems into Golden Opportunities

What your agency does when there is a problem will determine your long-term success.  You must empower your staff to rejoice whenever there is a problem!  Every problem is a golden opportunity to build a stronger relationship with your customers.  Studies have shown that customers whose complaints are handled satisfactorily and in an expeditious manner are more likely to purchase additional services than those who experienced no problems with your services.  Since most of your competition probably runs from problems, this ability becomes a tremendous strategic advantage.

The opportunity is to build strong relationships with your referral sources by being visible and proactive when there are problems.  This single strategy will grow your stream of referrals better than any other strategy you may implement.  By maintaining high values and resolving problems that arise, you are building a very strong foundation for being a preferred provider for many years to come.

Service recovery or conflict resolution is all about keeping your customers satisfied and loyal users of your services despite problems that have surfaced.  This means that even if there is a service disaster, your customer still views your agency as the best to provide the services required.  It is the special effort that your customers will come to expect from your agency when something has gone a little or a lot wrong for them.  Service recovery is all about restoring trust when your customer is most likely to doubt your agency’s abilities.

The other thing that conflict resolution provides as a benefit is the opportunity to “train” your patients and clients as well as your staff.  Every interaction surrounding a service problem will be valuable to the training process.  This means that you will want to document many of these service recoveries to use with future staff training.  It will also underscore the importance of clear communication.

The economics of service recovery are easy to quantify, if you do nothing you lose customers and undermine your entire program.  If you are able to satisfy your customer’s problems you will actually end up with more loyalty than if there were no problems.  And while we would not suggest you create problems just to solidify your relationships with your customers, you must see problems as great service opportunities.  Your staff will really shine once they are great at problem resolution. 

Nothing is gained by winning an argument and losing a customer.

Since we know that customers won’t always seek us out to report service problems, we must be adept at probing for information and detecting problems.  In your satisfaction surveys or customer service profiling, always be on the lookout for suggestions for improvement and complaints.  Respond and let your survey respondents know that you appreciate their input and will use their response to aid with service improvement and report back to them.  Invite them to establish an ongoing dialogue with your agency to keep them providing additional ideas and suggestions.

Remember the golden rule:  to treat others, as you would like to be treated.  Think of how you would like to have the problem resolved if the tables were turned.  Don’t spend your time thinking about how it should be resolved to best suit your agency.  In other words, always put yourself in the customer’s shoes when analyzing how to best fix a service breakdown.

When a customer lodges a complaint, it can either be resolved or not, and if resolved, it can be resolved quickly or not.  Quick resolution is the ideal situation, but not all situations can be resolved quickly.  All situations must be analyzed quickly and communication regarding the problem and potential resolutions shared with the customer.  Ignoring a problem is the worst thing that can happen.  Any amount of time that elapses between your being made aware of the complaint and your taking action is going to be perceived by the customer as you ignoring them.

Remember that any problem that was significant enough to warrant complaining by your customer cannot be ignored or put on a list of low priority items.  If your customer felt strongly enough to bring it to your agency’s attention, then you must treat it with equal priority.  On the first contact, you must tell them what to expect. 

Your competitors may try to copy many things that you do, but they’ll never be able to replicate your legendary service culture.

The bottom line is this:  Resolution of customer complaints, concerns or problems and the return of that customer to a state of satisfaction with your agency have a profound effect on your agency.  It has an enormous financial reward for the agency.  It enables continued growth and saves on marketing expenses.  It is critical to the long-term success of your customer relationship program.  And, it will create stronger teams within your agency with greater pride and loyalty.  Problems provide ongoing diagnostics of your service program.  And, you will be building a strong bond between the agency and your staff as well as your agency and its customers.