At some point, your business will suffer a failure that disappoints customers. The measure of a company is determined at such moments.
Customers see your true colors at these times more than at any other. How you explain, react, remove the pain, and take accountability for your actions, clearly signals your sentiment toward customers and reveals the collective "heart" of your organization.
These are emotional times. For customers, you are either sincere in your efforts or you're not. And they can immediately sniff out the difference.
Three recent high-profile customer experiences illustrate the importance of a well-executed forgiveness and recovery plan:
- Menu Foods. The manufacturer of wet dog and cat food sold by the millions under private label brands at major stores such as Petco and Wal-Mart has been trying to regain ground with customers since March 2007; that's when it was discovered that some of its wet cat and dog food was produced with adulterated wheat gluten. Deaths of beloved family pets, and the illnesses of multitudes of dogs and cats, are being attributed to the company's product.
- JetBlue. The airline's customer-experience meltdown began with a winter 2007 snowstorm, when it ended up canceling 1,096 flights and stranding thousands of passengers, flight attendant and pilots.
- Con Edison. New York City customers experienced a 10-day power outage in the height of the summer of 2006.
If I had had the ear of these companies, I'd have recommended the following seven actions for preparing, reacting to, and regaining customer trust when things go wrong:
1. Put as much forethought into planning customer experience recovery as you do planning IT and natural disaster recovery.
Inventory the potential scenarios. Determine how your organization will engage across the silos or operating areas to swiftly spring into action. What are the early warning signals to tip off a potential crisis? Who are the cross-company members of a "customer recovery" unit to brainstorm solutions? Are you nimble enough to spring into action, identify the issue, plan a recovery, and implement within a day? How about within hours? You should be. That's what your customers expect, and deserve.
One of the most widely criticized elements of the Menu Foods situation was that it took the company so long to acknowledge and respond. The first precautionary recall announcement was made on March 16. It wasn't until March 23 that it got its call centers in gear and began contacting customers.
Likewise, when the New York City utility Con Edison experienced a 10-day power outage last summer, CEO Kevin Burke didn't emerge with either explanation or apology—or plan—in the first few days of the outage.
The better you are in your customers' eyes, the more swiftly they expect you to respond. JetBlue missed an opportunity to immediately get back on track to deliver the service that its customers had come to expect, because there had not been a robust operational contingency plan to address the challenges created by that storm.
2. Apologize. Be humble.
JetBlue had an advantage in its situation because of its good service record and history, which stood it in good stead with customers emotionally. David Neeleman, JetBlue's CEO said he felt "mortified" and "humiliated" and began to take action immediately. He exercised even greater humility when he stepped aside as CEO recently, handing the operations leadership over to Dave Barger, who he said was better prepared to lead that side of the business.
3. Work from a position of "humanity" to connect with customers.
Empathize with customers, put yourself in their shoes, and make sure they know you care. Menu Foods has an opportunity here. People want to see a dog and cat food company show great empathy for the pet-ownership emotional connection. With action and humanity, the company can embrace and guide its customers through this tough time. However, customers are instead experiencing an apparently orchestrated set of actions that seems to have gone through extensive legal review before being released for public consumption.
4. Turn "recovery" into an opportunity that says to your customers, "Who else would respond this way?"
Why don't airlines, for example, have a contingency plan to transform delays during spring and winter break (when families are forced to spend long periods waiting in airports) into unexpected experiences? Imagine families' reactions when they experience airline employees offering playtime activities and snacks to the kids? Imagine the number of people who would recommend the company based on such an investment that's low on cash commitment but high on the empathy meter.
What about changing the approach to the service desk in these emergencies? Get rid of the queue that angry and disgruntled customers have to stand in. Have agents roaming with laptops and helping. Make it simpler and easier—don't make customers beg to get rebooked.
In these circumstances, there is nothing that takes the place of a voice on the other end of the line. This is not the time to cut back on staff. The Menu Foods Web site directs customers to the standard frequently asked questions (FAQ) section in the food-recall part of the Web site. And when high call volumes meant many customers didn't get through on phone lines, customers were told what times were best to call, when the volumes were lower.
Proactively reach out to customers. Contact customers, and have executives be a part of that process. They need to have the voice of the customer in their ear to inspire the right next steps.
Quickly—very quickly—give customers an apology gesture: anything from a free ticket to a list of options that your frontline workers have available to give during these times. But don't make customers beg for it.
5. Know which customers, by customer segment, have been affected by the situation.
This is important to understand the potential impact on your business and to gauge your recovery effort. If your best customers are affected, you can bet they're waiting for an acknowledgement from you. They'll want to know what extra steps you're taking to make sure they remain your customer. This is a seemingly simple action, but most companies don't think to segment and reach out to customers by segment.
Make everyone "whole"—but use segment information to determine how much additional outreach should be done to retain the most important asset of your business: your loyal and profitable customers.
6. Communicate frequently, actively, and passionately.
Find an active way via the media to get the word out and communicate directly with customers about what is happening, where they can get help, and, most importantly, what is being done to fix the situation.
7. Aggressively make whatever changes necessary to ensure that the problem does not happen again.
Think Tylenol. Its response was immediate, impassioned, active, extensive, and appropriate. It experienced a horrible situation for the brand, but because of its response the company has made an indelible mark in the hearts and minds of consumers throughout the world.
Making the Sincere Apology Part of Your Company DNA
At Southwest Airlines, Fred Taylor Jr. has the formal title of Senior Manager of Proactive Customer Communications. His informal title? Chief Forgiveness Officer. He spends his 12-hour workdays finding out how Southwest disappointed its customers. He then fires off homespun letters of apology and "touches" to ease the situation. Bully for Southwest for doing this because, well, it's the right thing to do. Our moms told us when you hurt someone, intentionally or not, you apologize.
When I was at Lands' End, just like any other company we had mishaps from time to time. These became the times that the culture shined through even more. For example, once we shipped thousands of towels to customers then found later in the quality review process that they might have been faulty.
Without waiting for the customers to contact us, we sent every single one of those customers a new towel. And a letter that said something like this: "The towel we originally sent you may have been faulty. We're not sure, but we just inspected some that were and wanted to make sure that you've got a good towel. So here's another one from us to you. Don't bother returning the first one we sent—we just want you to be happy with us."
Another time, we hand-wrote notes that said we were sorry and explained why the situation occurred and how we fixed it. We wanted to have a bit of fun—so we actually put in crushed egg shells in the envelope. You know, egg on our face and all of that. It was funny—it was, well, very Lands' End at that time. We did all of this because it was true to our nature. And we apologized because we cared—truly. And it's why Southwest Airlines does what it does.
Other airlines are realizing that accepting culpability is important, and recently they have been saying they're sorry in great numbers. Great, that's step one. But all those who say they are sorry have got to mean it. Step two is taking action to make the pain stop.
Don't jump on the apology bandwagon if you can't do it right. Start with sincerely caring, communicate what happened, explain how you will help customers—and do it swiftly. Begin with engaging the right group of people to create a contingency plan so things just click into place when the inevitable occurs.
Remember when you were a kid and your brother or sister punched you or pinched you? Sure, an apology followed. But it didn't mean much because (a) your parent was usually prompting the words and (b) you'd been apologized too many times before, only to be punched again another day.
That is what we put our customers through when we deliver a hollow apology and don't fix the problem. You'll likely get credit when you apologize once. But when it repeats, another letter for the same problem won't cut it. Your currency with customers and their trust in you will have dwindled.
Take apologizing to your customers seriously, and do it right. Don't put your customers through the emotional rollercoaster of having a bad experience and then receiving a hollow apology. The measure of your company is determined in these moments. And your customers are keeping score.
Reference: "Crisis Management: JetBlue's Survival School." Tara Weiss, Forbes.com, Feb. 20, 2007.
