How a company reacts to adversity reflects the humanity of an organization...and shows its true colors more than almost another situation it might encounter. Repairing the emotional connection well is a hallmark of companies we love. It makes us love them even more.


Via Rail, Canada's national passenger rail network has shown its humanity, humility and remorse with how they are apologizing to customers for a recent two-day strike which paralyzed travel.
In this apology Paul Côté, President and Chief Executive Officer of VIA extends an olive branch, and an action that is commensurate with the pain they know their customers experienced. They are giving a 60% discount to ALL customers making reservations for trips between July 26, 2009 and December 14, 2009. Steve Del Bosco, Via's Customer Officer said,"This is our way of expressing our gratitude for the support they [our customers]have shown us over the past week."
What's your reaction time in a customer crisis? Are there plans you can set in motion as soon as a crisis occurs?
Do you have a "customer recovery plan" that's as rehearsed and ready to implement as you plan to recover from a systems failure?
Are You READY?
What is helping or hindering your ability to proactively be ready to recover customers?


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Via Rail Stays on Customer Loyalty Track by Apologizing Well

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Jeanne Bliss
Jeanne Bliss began her career at Lands’ End where she reported to founder Gary Comer and the company’s executive committee, ensuring that in the formative years of the organization, the company stayed focused on its core principles of customer and employee focus. She was the first leader of the Lands’ End Customer Experience. In addition to Lands’ End, she has served Allstate, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker Corporation and Mazda Corporations as its executive leading customer focus and customer experience. Jeanne has helped achieve 95% retention rates across 50,000 person organizations, harnessing businesses to work across their silos to deliver a united and deliberate experience customers (and employees) want to repeat. Jeanne now runs CustomerBliss (https://www.customerbliss.com), an international consulting business where she coaches executive leadership teams and customer leadership executives on how to put customer profitability at the center of their business, by getting past lip service; to operationally relevant, operationally executable plans and processes. Her clients include Johnson & Johnson, TD Ameritrade, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospitals, Bombardier Aircraft and many others. Her two best-selling books are Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action and I Love You More than My Dog: Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad. Her blog is https://www.ccocoach.com She is Co-founder of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. www.cxpa.org