SHOW & CHAPTER 15: THE RECOVERY GAP - WILLIAM EASTMAN

When Delivery on Promise fails, your Recovery process becomes paramount. It is the opportunity to show how service oriented the firm is, as long as it is not an ongoing situation; it will destroy your reputation and become financially unsustainable. The marketing and sales processes create a set of expectations on how important the customer's business is to you, what results can they expect from purchasing the offer, and how easy the offer will be to use or consume.

Show Objective
Given an organization-wide emphasis for delivering on promise to customers, you will be able to take a negative event and make it a win for the customer.

EPISODE 69: Summary
An effective recovery strategy requires several things are in place: (1) your marketing and sales efforts don't over promise to any significant degree, (2) your processes are under control so defects are minimized, (3) there is a policy for handling recovery situations, and (4) the front line can solve it without management involvement.

Topics:

1. Understand the opportunity to build a service reputation
2. Clear and stated Recovery processes
3. Front Line personnel enabled to handle the complaint

EPISODE 70: Recovery Starts With Policy
The frontline needs both the responsibility and the authority to fix customer problems. This is partially based on having a clear set of policies or standard operating procedures that provides both. Also the business has to be organized to provide support when needed. Most service failures at the frontline are because when they request help - there is none.

Topics:

• Customer Intelligence is shared throughout the company
• All internal processes are designed to respond to customer complaints
• Frontline / Customer Facing personnel are supported internally
• Policy and Procedures align with servicing customers

EPISODE 71: Recovery Must Happen Immediately
This is one of the more crucial elements of a Recovery strategy that enhances the company's reputation. The frontline individual dealing with an unhappy customer must be able to fix it immediately. If they have to get permission or boot up to management the moment will be lost.

Topics:

• Parameters are set that allow frontline / customer facing personnel maximum flexibility to fix the problem on the spot
• A clear policy exists outlining the the limited situations the customer-contact personnel push the issue to management

EPISODE 72: Fixing It for the Customer is Decision Making
This is a tough issue for management or the owner, you must trust the frontline person to make good decisions. If you have brought them into the great game of business and they understand how you make money, they can make better decisions. This is not an issue of trusting them, your education on the business will make most of their decisions sound for the business while the customer wins.

Topics:

• Customer contact personnel understand how the company makes money
• There is a post-recovery discussions on the thought process for recovery
• Most situations do not require a financial response

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Next Show/Chapter 19: The Personnel Gap

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