VALUE FOR MONEY IS AS MUCH A PRODUCT OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AS IT IS ABOUT PRODUCT QUALITY
Whichever way you look at it (and I’ll do that in more detail shortly), churn is directly related to our inability to overdeliver or our propensity to underdeliver, relative to our customers’ expectations of how they deserve to be treated in the first place. There’s no reason for a customer to leave if they feel that they’re treated well, appreciated, and getting their money’s worth (value). To that end, the very interpretation of value becomes so much more than just objective evaluation (product intrinsics). Rather, it is a host of personal, emotional, and subjective factors, including—but not limited to—how customers are treated and appreciated.
How many times have you lobbed the kiss-of-death threat (or bluff) at a service provider? From the “I’ll take my business elsewhere” ultimatum to the less forgiving “you’ve just lost a customer,” our ability to retain customers, loyalty, and repeat business will always be closely linked to our ability to treat them as we would expect to be treated in return. And though this may sound painfully obvious and elementary, it is somehow completely bypassed when we play the numbers game and reduce our customers to figures and data points.
So what can you do about it? For starters, when customers threaten to take their business elsewhere, don’t attempt to call what you may perceive to be a bluff; instead shift gears into high defense and open up a new playbook designed to counter this threat. Ask, “What can I do to prevent you from leaving?” or “What will it to take to change your mind?” After all, what’s the worst that can happen? They leave anyway, and you tried your best; nothing ventured, nothing gained. But what’s the best that can happen? They remain in the fold: Loyalty: 1, Churn: 0. Ultimately, the answers to the questions are almost always going to be “solve my problem” or “help me.” Other times, it may require an “I’m sorry” or an assurance that “it won’t happen again.”
Asking customers to give you another chance is as easy as asking the question. The hard part is making sure that whatever has offended them never happens again, and the only way to prevent a relapse is to make sure customer service is integrated into the organization’s business processes, knowledge centers, and learning systems.
Jet Blue did just that when, following a horror incident in February 2007, when passengers were stranded on the JFK tarmac for more than 10 hours, they introduced a customer bill of rights.5 This document covers items like departure delays, overbookings, onboard ground delays, and flight cancellations. It begins with the following words:
Above all else, JetBlue Airways is dedicated to bringing humanity back to air travel. We strive to make every part of your experience as simple and as pleasant as possible. Unfortunately, there are times when things do not go as planned. If you’re inconvenienced as a result, we think it is important that you know exactly what you can expect from us. That’s why we created our Customer Bill of Rights. These Rights will always be subject to the highest level of safety and security for our customers and crewmembers.
The Bill of Rights was last updated in July 2008, demonstrating that customer service and adapting to customer needs is very much a live work in progress. (To view the Bill of Rights, visit www.flipthefunnelnow.comand click on “enhanced content.”)
I actually wrote about this incident in my previous book, and to my knowledge, no similar incident has occurred since, further proving that brands do get a second chance at making a great second impression.
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