Quotes by Kristen DeTienne

“If companies can figure out what their failures are going to be and how they can make customers feel good about them, they are going to keep those customers in the long run.”

“The organization later faced a class action lawsuit, and I got a rebate check as part of the settlement. Customer service problems can be very expensive for companies, and a lot of times they dont think about the long-term costs and the loss-of-loyalty issues they create.”

“Bad service is something everyone can relate to -- weve all had an experience with an obnoxious employee or had to call to correct an error on a bill. What we often cant relate to is the great way a company recovers from a service failure and wins our future business.”

“Tangible is what the company does to appease customers, and psychological is how they do it. For example, we had a student who paid for flowers to be delivered on Mothers Day. By accident, the flowers werent delivered. The florist profusely apologized for the oversight -- that was the psychological. Then, he recovered by delivering a different bouquet of flowers to the mothers house every day for a week after that -- that was the tangible.”

“Often companies are not aware of additional inconveniences caused by their service failures. They know the new TV you bought from them broke but dont know you had all of your friends over to watch the game when the picture went out.”

“Oftentimes, theyll do whats necessary to keep your business -- but they need to fully understand your expectations.”

“One of the reasons Im interested in service recovery is because years ago I was working for the customer service line of a newspaper. When people missed their newspapers, I was the person they called. I understood the situation the same, whether they cursed at me or used a friendly tone of voice. I think its important to be very clear about what the problem was, the inconvenience it caused you, what you are expecting them to do to recover -- but be kind in your behavior as well.”