Mastering 'the timing' of an apology in service recovery
Developing and retaining customer relationships with customers, is a key, if not critical strategy for sustaining business, and this includes protecting the loyalty and welfare of one’s’ current customers.
Problems and complaints are bound to occur over the lifetime of any customer relationship. How businesses handle and resolve these effectively is vital to preventing that ‘relationship’ ending abruptly. Handled improperly, it can lead to customer dissatisfaction and instant loss of reputation in today’s technologically-led ‘word-of-mouth’ global environment.
When faced with the need to repair a problem on close to 425,000 of its vehicles, one car manufacturer chose to do whatever was necessary to placate its worried customers. It set up several ‘hotlines’, went direct to owners, rallied round its dealers and opened its checkbook to do whatever was necessary to rectify the situation. This included key management staff visiting the homes of some longtime customers in person. A company official summed it up best, when he said “the goal of the company was to fix both the car and the customer as quickly as possible and retain the loyalty level”. Fix meaning rectify rather than punish.
The message here is that when things go wrong, as they will - even in the best organisations, the recovery strategy can have a dramatic impact on the company’s reputation and future profitability. The ability to deal effectively with customer problems is also closely related to employee satisfaction and loyalty, which are critical concerns in industries where customer relationships is intimately associated with the individual service provider or front-liners, than with the organization.
The stories doing the rounds on social media of two reputed hotels where ‘mishaps’ were ineptly addressed leading to exposure on social media and calling for people to boycott the two named establishments, is worth mentioning.
In the 1st incident, a person nearly consumed a gecko in a cake purchased from a hotel. Finding an insect in food can be upsetting; nearly consuming it can be an emotionally painful and distressing experience. In such a situation it calls for the delicate handling of the complaint - likely to be made in anger and disgust. The hotel’s staff showing lack of understanding, accompanied by the usual knee-jerk ‘denial’ reaction no doubt resulted in the disgruntled customer inflicting further damage by reporting it on Facebook.
In the 2nd incident, a seaside resort hotel refused to refund the balance of a deposit taken from a guest who had to stay under a mandatory 14 day quarantine period, which, was lifted by the health authorities, just one day later. The hotel’s refusal to refund the balance to the guest, who no longer needed to self-isolate, was ‘highlighted’ on social media and suffice to say showcased that particularly hotel as ‘greedy’ and ‘uncaring’.
Apart from process and pest control failures, clearly, the staffs in both hotels were not trained in handling these types of issues. This could also be due to certain staff dissatisfactions – perhaps aimed at the employer, where staff simply does not care of the outcome. Maybe, there was a lack of empowerment where first-tier staff was unable to placate disgruntled guests on-the-spot.
A fundamental of a service recovery strategy, is taking cognizance that things can go wrong, and how fast one reacts to putting things right - can ‘pull it off’ to end on a ‘positive’ note.
Only after the proverbial ‘sh…-hit-the-fan’ or the ‘closing of the stable door after the horse had bolted’, did the Management of both hotels issue a letter of apology. Leaders of these organisations must realise that apart from ‘preparing’ from every possible debacle, a timely and sincere apology with appropriate restitution can turn enmity into forgiveness – while an apology that’s too little, too late, or too transparently hypocritical can open the floodgates to public ridicule. Social media can be unforgiving - especially to the initially unrepentant!
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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