Trinkets for the kiddies

Not too long ago I was at a conference for Service Management. After signing in at the registration desk, I was given a small lapel pin with multi-colored blinking LEDs. As the father of two small children the first thought that ran through my mind was that my kids, both of them old enough to no longer hurt themselves with a lapel pin and still young enough to go gaga over colorful blinking lights, would get a kick out of one of these. As anyone who has more than one child knows, it is dangerous to bring home only one of anything, so I asked if I could have a second pin and explained why.

As rules would have it, only one pin was allowed per registered participant, even if the pins only cost fifty cents, the event cost me well over a thousand dollars, and both I and the lady at the registration desk knew full well that by end of the conference she would have a hand full of extras that she would either throw away or stuff in a drawer to gather dust forever. Not a big deal, however. I was sure to find some other trophy to bring home. I was in Kansas and cowboy boots crossed my mind, with the challenge being translating my children's European shoe sizes to US sizes.

Within a few minutes of finding a seat in my first session and starting a chat with the fellow next to me, someone tapped me on the shoulder and before I knew it, I had two lapel pins handed to me. That was nice, I thought. Then I thought some more and saw that it was more than nice, it was "Service Recovery".

What relevance does this have to Service Management?

There are several takeaways from this experience.

1) It is never too late to make things right. We all make mistakes every now and then, but it is never too late to go back to a customer who suffered under our error and make amends. Both you and the customer feel better for it. Because almost nobody engages in "Service Recovery", your customer may even remember you for life. As well, addressing your mistake mentally reinforces you to not repeat that mistake.

2) You don't have to wait for an angry customer to do the right thing. When I didn't get the lapel pin, I wasn't upset. I didn't express anger or even disappointment. However, just because a customer doesn't verbalize their disappointment, doesn't mean they aren't disappointed. It is enough if you would be disappointed if you were in their position.

3) Sometimes breaking rules is the right thing to do. If the value created by breaking the rule outweighs potential negative consequences, then go for it. Rules that are never broken never change.

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Author:  Edward Caulfield