Rescue customers from churning with good service recovery

CX advisory board member and head of Qualtrics XM Institute, Bruce Temkin, discusses good service recovery and its impact on CX.

CX Network: What are your top tips for providing service recovery that hits the mark?

Bruce Temkin: First of all, learn from the service issue so that you will not need to do it with other customers in the future. For service recovery, I recommend following the five elements of what I call the C.A.R.E.S. model:

• Communication (clearly communicate the process and set expectations)
• Accountability (take responsibility for fixing the problem or getting an answer)
• Responsiveness (do not make the customer wait for your communication or a solution)
• Empathy (acknowledge the impact that the situation has on the customer)
• Solution (at the end of the day, make sure to solve the issue or answer the question)

Also, keep in mind that when someone has an issue, their emotional state can often deteriorate over time as they lament their negative situation. So, it makes sense to act as quickly as possible, which often means empowering your frontline employees with as much leeway as possible to correct issues immediately.

CX Network: Following on from this, what impact can service recovery have on customer loyalty and satisfaction?

BT: We have done research over the years that shows that when a company has a very strong recovery after an issue, a customer’s loyalty can actually increase. However, this is not true in all cases, so you really need to have a very good response. Do not plan on service recovery as a net additive to your growth numbers. Assume that customers who do not run into major issues are going to be more loyal.

CX Network: As discussed in this month’s advisory board call, understanding what healthy customer patterns look like is integral to building customer advocacy. How can CX practitioners accurately recognise healthy customer patterns? 

BT: You should be able to tell (and eventually predict) if a customer is “healthy” based on a combination of operational and experience data.

If you combine information about who the customer is (their persona or segment), with what the customer has done (for example product usage patterns or service history) and how they feel about recent interactions and the organization overall. Ideally, you want a customer who is actively using your products, successfully tapping into your service offerings, and has positive attitudes about your organization and its products.

CX Network: In an upcoming webinar, Qualtrics will be discussing delivering returns through experience management. How can experience management give companies a competitive edge? 

BT: Experience management (XM), which includes CX, helps organizations continuously learn what people are thinking and feeling, propagate those insights to the people who can use them, and rapidly adapt what they do to take advantage of an increasing flow of insights.

When organizations adopt the XM discipline they identify and resolve problems faster, spot shifts in the market quicker, and uncover more opportunities for innovations that can disrupt the market. So, the business returns show up in many ways including better revenue from existing customers, better growth from new customers, higher success rates and revenue from new offerings, and better employee retention.