Can you fix it?

I call it "remedial custoemr service." And you should avoid having to practice it if you can.

Once your customer has an unhappy experience, can you fix it? What should you do? You want happy customers, of course. The bad experience may not be anyone's fault. You should definitely try to fix that.

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As I said, the poor quality of the experience could be simply due to unmet expectations. Your customer wanted more, or different, than your company could provide.

This falls under the nobody's fault rubric. It's there with a situation created because the customer was in a bad mood or having a bad day. (The chronically hard-to-please is another story all together and likely irremediable.)

This is a case where you'll want to soothe and smooth out the occurrence. Here are a couple of ways to do that:

One possibility is to offer to have the coveted item in stock and on hold for this customer the next time. Extend the courtesy of a call when you have it. Make it available at a small discount to accommodate the trouble of a second trip. If the customer was looking for a service your company could not offer, help him/her find someone who can assist them.

Let's say, however, that this was not a blameless poor experience, but that one of your staff was unhelpful.  This lead to a dissatisfied patron.

Can you fix this?

If the customer complains, you are obligated to try to make things better for him and for you. Have someone else help out, or work with him/her yourself. Offer to serve this client whenever s/he comes in. The extra attention should make up for he slip in service experienced.

Then be sure to train your staff to be friendly, courteous and solicitous of yor customers!

The above were just two examples of No Fault and At Fault calls for "remedial customer service." Let me tell you this real life story in which the fix failed, and why.

A couple of times a year, I treat myself to a tourist's breakfast in New York's theater district. It's expensive and enough of a meal to keep me going all day. The service is genuinely good, the eggs hot, the coffee plentiful, and it comes with a generous pour of grapefruit juice. The sausage, however, is a patty. which is usually fine. On one occasion, I decided to mix it up. The bacon turned out to be greasy and tough to chew. To add to that disappointment, they were also out of grapefruite juice.

I mentoned my letdown to the manager who took my credit card. He did the right thing-- apologized, gave me his card. "Ask for next time you come in, please."

On my next visit, I waited fifteen minutes at the table. When I left the restaurant after twenty minutes had passed, the manager was still chatting (and flirting) with a waitress at the back bar.

I should probably send the manager a note of gratitude. I had a very pleasant and much less expensive meal on the other side of the street. I am unlikely to ever return to the restaurant.

A lot of your customers, however, do come back regardless of their experience. Many of your customers won't complain when they are unhappy. Some of them won't come back. Others will if it's convenient for them. You won't have their trust or loyalty.