Introduction:

Mr. Boyle is a long-time customer of Regal Florists and has spent 20 years making many orders alongside Mrs. Boyle for their family and others professionally.

In one unfortunate instance recently, Mr. Boyle ordered a specific set of flowers and cards for his wife, and another set of flowers meant for his assistant. A part-time employee who took the order may have confused recipients, as Mr. Boyle’s assistant received the flowers and personal message meant for his wife, and by chance, Mrs. Boyle was awkwardly present when delivered.

Mr. Boyle is now furious with the Regal Florists establishment, even after year of patronage.

Information:

When it comes to customer loyalty at the crossroads of forgiveness, there seems to be a correlation.

It’s reported that in business, loyal customers are often the ones who are most willing to forgive and come back. This is due to the customer knowing that they receive exceptional service for the majority, so they won’t want to let one experience spoil a possible future of excellent customer service (Hanselman, 2013).

In my personal experience, I have also found this to be true. I use Amazon as an example, as I’m programmed to return to Amazon again and again, even after the few times they have mistakenly sent me the wrong item or been late. Although rare when packages don’t arrive correctly, I’ve always been served promptly, and refunded or had items replaced and at no additional shipping cost. I know that even if there’s a mistake, it will be resolved.

At Regal Florists, although Mr. Boyle’s occasion was an instance where he arrived unplanned, it’s essential for future occurrences of angry customers that we have a customer service response policy or plan in place (Queen, 2018). Having an idea of how we are going to fix a problem will allow us to reassure customers the issue will be resolved confidently, future problems won’t happen again and share how and what we will do to avoid the problem.

Mistakes can and will happen, so that’s why it’s ever necessary to have a plan in place to remedy potential issues.

After problems occur and the customer issue has been addressed, it’s also necessary and crucial to document and use the feedback from the customer as a way to improve (Mind Tools). For Regal Florists, this may mean we start taking each negative customer experience and putting together a policy for how we will respond. For example, we can take Mr. Boyle’s experience and catalog whether or not a switched-delivery mistake deserves a refund.

We can then also begin to refer to our customer service policies if posted and used to inform customers and train entry-level employees how to respond to situations.

References

Hanselman, Andy (June 6, 2013). Proof That Your Loyal Customers Forgive, Rebuy And Recommend! CustomerThink.com. Retrieved July 12, 2020 from the Customer Think website:
https://customerthink.com/proof_that_your_loyal_customers_forgive_rebuy_and_recommend/

Mind Tools (n.d.). Dealing With Unhappy Customers. Mindtools.com. Retrieved July 12, 2020 from the MindTools website:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/unhappy-customers.htm

Queen, Michelle (October 3, 2018). How to Respond to Angry Customers When You’ve Made a Mistake. EMBStore.com. Retrieved July 12, 2020 from the Embroidery Store website:
https://www.embstore.com/how-to-respond-to-angry-customers-when-youve-made-a-mistake/