There is always chatter in the research realm regarding how – and which – snafus in the customer experience will result in the dreaded negative word-of-mouth. It’s something every company has to be concerned with because, let’s face it: Accidents happen. Nothing goes right 100 percent of the time. And I would argue that that’s OK! In fact, depending on how your organization mends the snags in the fabric of customer satisfaction, it could end up working in your favor.
My family and I recently took a long weekend to drive nearly 10 hours west for a close friend’s wedding. Being that this would be probably our only vacation together this summer, we opted to stay at one of the “fancier” hotels in the area. Back in April I took it upon myself to head up the planning and make sure that everything was in order.
Unfortunately, when we arrived at the hotel nothing was in order.
From losing our reservation (two Os in Goon!) to not having a dog-friendly room available to no toilet paper to a clogged drain to three-too-few coffee mugs to an overheating hair dryer to “historic” really meaning “small with a bizarre layout,” I was, as my dad would say, in a bit of a tizzy as we were checking in and getting settled.
This list of grievances is not short and some of these things – ahem, toilet paper! – are, what I would consider, non-negotiables. We easily could’ve packed up our things and headed to the Holiday Inn Express, demanded a new suite or argued for a discounted rate. But we didn’t. From the moment we arrived we were greeted with as much hospitality and do-right-by-the-customer as we were with problems. Maintenance men and extra toilet paper were sent up immediately and the general manager himself made an exception allowing our dog to reside on an animal-free floor. While our complaints were many, they didn’t stay complaints for long. When our floor manager Emily was laughing with us in the foyer over an ironing board that just would not close, it was practically impossible to stay grumpy.
In the end, as we were checking out I found myself thanking the very same girl who saved my reservation under “Emily Gon – No Pets” for being so accommodating.
Efficient problem-solving concerning customer complaints can go a long way in establishing whether your lasting impression is positive or negative. How can customer satisfaction research help your cause? Does your organization have systems in place to capture stories like mine, where employees saved the day? Does your customer satisfaction measurement tool allow for respondents to explain their experience? Are you looking beyond the complaints to really see how they were resolved?
I think it would be fair to assume that our extremely high-achieving readers give their customers far less grief than this hotel gave me, but ask yourself: Are you part of the problem or are you part of the solution?