I was working for an organization where we had many customer relationships. After being with us for two years, one of the customers decided to look at other providers for their needs.
When we inquired, we were told that they faced three issues in the last two months, and they weren’t handled well by our team.
Needless to say, we didn’t want to lose them, and especially after knowing the reason why they wanted to look at an alternate provider.
What did we do?
Our executive management team got together, and we decided to have one of the management folks as the executive sponsor for that account.
We communicated this to the unhappy customer, and we told them to put us on probation for the next 90 days, and they can pay us half the fee that they were paying otherwise during this period.
The offer was irresistible, and they decided to give this approach a try, and we floored them with our service and responsiveness. It has been a decade now, and they continue to be a happy customer.
How did we communicate this story?
We got them to be a part of a webinar that we were doing for our leads and prospects. Their Software Engineering Director was one of the speakers. She spoke about the fact that they decided to discontinue their relationship with us, how we responded, and where we are currently.
You won’t believe we picked up 40 leads from that webinar and a handful of them became our customers. I’d attribute that success to this customer service story.
Why is this experience significant?
80% of customers will switch to another company after just one poor customer experience. So, you compete with your competitors now on pricing and selection and the experience.
Customer experience is being looked at as the product nowadays, as there is little else to choose between offerings.
When you look at customer service, you have to look at them from start to finish and close the loop. It is a given that you won’t delight your customers 100% of the time, but how you respond to their challenges plays a significant role in how they perceive your customer service.
This is what they call the ‘peak and the end’ experience in customer service vocabulary.
The peak is when the customer experiences the strongest positive or negative emotion, whereas the end refers to how the experience concluded.
You must maintain a positive customer experience throughout the customer journey and respond to a negative experience.
Read more: How do you make your customer experience stand out?
