Restaurant Marketing Blog

Monday, January 25, 2010

When a customer is displeased with the service you’ve promised to provide, whether it be in your restaurant or retail store or any other category that deals with people, why does one think that a simple “I’m sorry” is going to remedy things? If you truly want to convert a bad experience into a memorable WOW experience that creates word of mouth, then you’ve got to take your “apologies” up a notch and do the unexpected.

For example, my Raleigh News & Observer wasn’t delivered to my door on Sunday morning. After numerous phone calls to their over-seas customer call center and promises that the paper would be delivered within an hour, it finally arrived more than 4 hours later! I met the delivery person who gave me the typical “I’m sorry’s” So, did he convert this from a bad experience into a good one? Definitely not and thus missed a huge opportunity to turn a dissatisfied customer into a raving fan. 

What could he have done to turn this around and make this experience truly wonderful? Simply this - “Mr. Cohen, I’m so sorry we didn’t deliver your paper as promised. I’m sure you wanted it to read with your Sunday breakfast, so here’s a bag of fresh Brueggar’s bagels and cream cheese and some hot coffee to go along with your paper.”

Another WOW opportunity gone down the drain because companies haven’t been trained properly in the process of WOWing their customers and still believe that average customer service is the norm. The best ever opportunity for any company to create a raving fan is when something has gone wrong for that customer.

I’d bet you my next Sunday newspaper that Nordstrom wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

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