A customer service failure,
simply defined, is customer service performance that fails
to meet an individual's expectations. Typically, when a
service failure occurs, a customer will expect to be
compensated for the inconvenience in the form of any
combination of refunds, credits, discounts or apologies.
The success of such customer service recovery efforts is
determined by the individual's expectations and perceptions
of the organization. Two key elements impact any effort to
restore customer satisfaction: the strength of customer
relationships and the severity of service failure.
Service failure: Service performance that fails to meet
expectations
The strength of the customer relationship with the
organization prior to a customer service failure has a
buffering effect in the event of failure. Research suggests
that customers who expect the relationship to continue
actually have lower service recovery expectations, and in
turn, are more satisfied with customer service performance
after recovery.
While this may seem counterintuitive at first glance,
consider the expectations of customers with a stronger
relationship with the organization. A customer who does not
have much commitment to the organization tends to be more
transaction-focused and expects immediate service recovery
when a particular transaction fails to meet expectations.
Conversely, a customer with strong commitment may demand
less immediate compensations with the expectation that
strong future interactions may correct the customer service
failure over time. Such findings suggest that service
providers not only have measures in place to identify the
strength of customer relationships but also the ability to
react to customer service failures.
The severity of the customer service failure moderates the
relationship between customer satisfaction and commitment.
Even with strong service recovery, research indicates that
customers may still be upset, engage in negative
word-of-mouth, and be less likely to develop trust with and
commitment to the organization, if the original customer
service failure was really bad.
In these cases, managers may need to do more to mend the
strength of customer relationships and restore commitment.
To identify such cases, service organizations need to track
and identify occurrences of customer service failure as well
as the severity of each.
The data available at the point of any customer service
failure, most notably the information provided by the
customer at the time of the complaint, should be viewed as
critical marketing research data necessary not only for
immediate service recovery but for improvement of future
performance.
Remember, a customer service failure is defined as a failure
to meet customer expectations and the success of any
recovery effort is measured by each individual customer
against his/her own expectations. Therefore, managers would
be well served to conduct a post-recovery assessment of
customer expectations and perceptions of recovery
performance against those expectations.
Classic customer service failure: serving cold
The impact of service failure recovery on customer
satisfaction can be easily illustrated with a familiar
example. Consider the case of a restaurant patron
complaining about his meal being served cold. In all
likelihood, this is not a severe customer service failure if
managed properly.
If the customer's server fails to offer a sufficient apology
and brings back a reheated meal after a 20-minute wait, a
first-time customer may be immediately deterred and never
return. If this is a long-time customer who has always
received excellent service, he may or may not write this
failure off, but either way will expect this sub-par service
to be countered with excellent service in the future.
While you may expect the customer with a long history of
having received excellent service to be more demanding in
the case of such a failure, in reality the new customer has
the higher expectations. His perceptions of the restaurant
are impacted by only this one experience where customer
service performance failed to meet his expectations. Without
a formal apology from a supervisor, a refund, and perhaps a
future credit, this new customer may allow this experience
to so alter his expectations of customer service performance
at this restaurant as to prevent him from returning.
The long-time customer has his expectations set by a long
history of excellent dining experiences and may be easier to
satisfy in the immediate wake of a customer service failure.
In either case, the restaurant manager must immediately
begin to turn his focus on ensuring future service delivery
levels and enhancing the strength of customer relationships
with each of these patrons.
About the author:
Brian Backer is a project manager with Polaris Marketing
Research. The Atlanta marketing research firm specializes in
consumer and business customer service satisfaction,
including service satisfaction tracking and service quality
measurement. Polaris' state-of-the-art marketing research
also includes customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement
programs, including personalized project management. Backer
can be reached by phone at 866-217-7014 during normal
business hours.
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