How to Turn Your Angry Customer into an Evangelist with One E-mail Letter
By Igor Mordkovich on Oct 5, 2006 in Customer Service, General
I noticed that every time something bad happens (customer service problems) it becomes an opportunity to 1) fix the mistake and not make it again and 2) turn the situation around and make that unsatisfied customer into a loyal evangelist.
How do we do it? I’ll get to it in a second.
Since in my career I’ve mostly dealt with B to C organizations I got used to seeing complaints here and there. Some of them were valid and some … well, we’re all people and we do have our bad days. Let’s just say a customer was not always “right”.
I’ve had to deal with some little problems (customer didn’t give clear address where to ship a product and in result there was a delay) to some bigger ones (marketing stunt of sending a sale promo to 70% of the customer list) that turned ugly.
In any case we had to approach every complaint, every letter and e-mail sent to us with respect and consideration. So, how do you turn a negative situation into a positive?
…..
You respond. You acknowledge the problem and promise to fix it. You show appreciation for the mention as this helps your business. At the end you offer to PAY for your mistake (even if it’s a mistake on both parts). How do you pay? You offer extra service, free service for certain amount of time, discount, etc.
When people complain, all they want is for the company to acknowledge the problem, sympathise and show effort in fixing the problem. I have NEVER seen a customer who was so unreasonable as to not at least be “satisfied” at the end.
Let me run this for you again. Here is how to turn an angry customer into an evangelist;
- Respond
- Acknowledge the problem and mistake
- Relate to the customer’s problem
- Show effort
- Offer to pay for the mistake (free month of service, discount, privilege, etc)
That’s all. Simple right? Unfortunately even these days when competition is breathing on their backs, companies ignore fixing these issues. Sad.
There are many more good articles about diffusing an angry customer. See these;
Excellent list, and right on the money. It’s WAY cheaper for a company to pay for a mistake the customer is angy about than to lose the lifetime value of that customer. And in the age of internet, the lifetime value of one customer is magnified as they may influence others to steer clear as well.
St0n3y | Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
About 4 years ago, I made a little mistake of sending a “sale” promo to the 70% of our customer list (thousands of people).
The trick was to make the e-mail look like an order reply. Pretty much we scared people half to death as they thought they had just placed an order. As you can image, e-mails started flying back to us with questions and concerns.
How did I turn that situation into THE most successful week of the company’s year of 2002?
E-mailed every one back explaining the dumb marketing stunt pulled by the marketing department just because they thought they had something very important to say.
To fix the problem we created a discount code for a very generous % off just for messing up. (The e-mail was very well written).
Result … best week of 2002.
P.S. Most people understood the situation and forgiven us. Surely there were few that requested to be taken off the list. But then again … best week of 2002. Plus … better communication there after (now they had something to remember us by).
Igor Mordkovich | Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
Excellent post! This is exactly what I’d like if I were in the customer’s shoes.
I’ve made a pretty good career for myself by following similar guidelines. Thanks for an informative and conscise post.
kuriharu | Oct 5, 2006 | Reply