Get Tuesday! - July 16, 2024
Greetings, friends.
Euro 2024 - it’s not coming home 😭. Once again, England failed to win a major tournament after coming up short versus Spain in the Euro final.
It’s The Open Championship week. Excited to watch some early (and middle-of-the-night) golf this week over in Scotland!
Now, onto the content for this week:
Service recovery paradox
This is a term and situation that I have just learned about recently — and it is fascinating!
Have you ever experienced better service from a company AFTER they initially let you down? Welcome to the service recovery paradox. It's a concept rarely discussed outside customer service circles, yet it holds the power to transform one-time failures into lifetime loyalty.
Picture this: A diner receives their meal late and cold. Instead of just apologizing, the restaurant manager comps the meal, adds a free dessert, and offers a discount for their next visit. Suddenly, the diner's disappointment turns into a story of exceptional customer service.
Why does this matter? Studies suggest that customers who experience a swift and effective service recovery can become more loyal than those who never faced an issue. It's counterintuitive, isn't it? We're wired to remember how situations make us feel, and a strong recovery can leave a lasting positive impact. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution.
The effectiveness of service recovery depends on the 1) severity of the failure, the 2) recovery effort, and the 3) individual customer's perceptions. But here's the catch - relying solely on service recovery can be dangerous. It's not a safety net for consistent poor service. Instead, it should be part of a broader strategy that prioritizes customer satisfaction at every touchpoint.
So, how can your business turn service failures into loyalty-building opportunities?
Train your team on the importance of immediate, empathetic responses to service failures.
Implement a flexible policy that empowers employees to make amends in a way that surprises and delights customers.
Continuously analyze feedback to prevent recurring issues.
Turning a negative into a positive is an art, and mastering it could mean turning casual customers into vocal advocates.
You're not overwhelmed, you're just focused on the wrong goals
Here are a few lines straight from Tim: “Most of us have goals.We’re building stuff. Doing stuff. Answering emails. Often the to-do list, though, is pointed at the wrong goal.
When curiosity helps you find the right goal, it’s more likely you’ll reach the promised land of obsession.
The more I’ve deleted all my other goals in life and gone all in on one goal, the more success I’ve had.
The same applies to you. Multiple goals are the fastest way to reach overwhelm and join the average at the bottom of the ladder.
To take this big idea and dumb it down to an operating system, I ask myself one big question every day:
"If I could only accomplish one thing today, and it would be a win, what would it be?"
That question runs my day. My to-do list has one big task—that’s it. If I do that, then everything else is good.”
Scary in your mind
The ultimate strategy document
Templates don’t do the thinking for you – but this one gets close.
This will not make your strategy great, but what it will do, is stop a great strategy falling flat - which most of them do.
These are the pieces that all strategies require, but far to few actually have:
Contextual background
A strong narrative argument
A embrace of change
A snappy summary
An order of execution
3 things to do
3 things to kill
Training your customers
Shep’s customer experience research shows that while customers might prefer the human touch, some expect digital, self-service solutions. In certain cases, they even demand it. And it’s not just in customer service.
In today’s digital world, a balance between customer service technology, including self-service solutions, and the high-touch experience with a live agent is essential. Empowering customers to confidently use your self-service options can increase customer satisfaction ratings while streamlining operations. To do that, it will take time to train customers to use your technology. Success hinges on good technology integrated with personal support to ensure customers feel valued and capable.
