When things go wrong, customer expectations tend to drop while fear and anger rise. Many service providers tend to avoid the issue, hiding from the damage, minimizing cost and shifting the blame to others. With the right approach and understanding, you can regain customer satisfaction and loyalty and make your organization even stronger. In this training powerpoint, you can educate customer service employees or new hires on the key concepts and principles of service recovery, learn how to handle difficult customers and acquire the five-step service recovery skill.   Learning Objectives 1. Understand the key concepts of service recovery 2. Understand the principles of effective service recovery systems 3. Understand why problems are opportunities 4. Acquire knowledge on how to make it easy for customers to complain 5. Acquire knowledge on how to handle difficult customers 6. Apply the five steps of service recovery skill ​ Contents 1. Introduction to Service Recovery 2. Principles of Effective Service Recovery Systems 3. Problems are Opportunities 4. Making it Easy for Customers to Complain 5. Handling Difficult Customers 6. Five Steps of Service Recovery To download this complete presentation, visit: http://www.oeconsulting.com.sg

1. © Operational Excellence Consulting. All rights reserved.
© Operational Excellence Consulting. All rights reserved.
Service
Recovery

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Learning Objectives
By the end of this program, you should be able to:
• Understand the key concepts of service recovery
• Understand the principles of effective service recovery
systems
• Understand why problems are opportunities
• Acquire knowledge on how to make it easy for
customers to complain
• Acquire knowledge on how to handle difficult customers
• Apply the five steps of service recovery
Copyrights of all the pictures used in this presentation are held by their respective owners.

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Contents
1. Introduction to Service Recovery
2. Principles of Effective Service Recovery
Systems
3. Problems are Opportunities
4. Making it Easy for Customers to Complain
5. Handling Difficult Customers
6. Five Steps of Service Recovery
NOTE: This is a PARTIAL PREVIEW. To
download the complete presentation, please visit:
http://www.oeconsulting.com.sg

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Introduction
• It is inevitable that things will go wrong
• When this happens, customer expectations tend
to drop while fear and anger rise
• Many service providers tend to run away, hiding
from the damage, minimizing cost and shifting
the blame to others
• With the right tools and understanding, you can
regain customer confidence and make your
organization even stronger

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Customer Response Categories to Service
Failure
Service Encounter
Is Unsatisfactory
Take No Action
Take Some Form
of Private Action
Take Some Form
of Public Action
Take Legal Action to
Seek Redress
Complain to a
Third Party
Complain to the
Service Firm
Negative Word of
Mouth
Defect (switch
provider)
Any One or a Combination of
These Responses Is Possible

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Why Customers Get Angry
• Did not get what was
promised
• Got something and it did
not work correctly
• Service was slow or sloppy
• Were treated rudely or with
indifference

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What is Service Recovery?
• Service recovery is the
action a service provider
takes in response to
service failure
• It is a process of returning
dissatisfied customers to a
state of satisfaction so as
to promote customer
retention

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What Does Service Recovery Involve?
• Solving the customer’s
problem quickly and fairly
• Offering the customer some
kind of compensation
• Following up to assure that
the customer is satisfied
• Continuous improvement

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Benefits of Service Recovery
• Positive influence on
customer satisfaction
• Improves word-of-mouth
behavior
• Builds customer loyalty
• Increase customer
profitability
• Provides organizational
learning

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Common service recovery mistakes
1. Managers disregard evidence that shows how
service recovery provides a significant
financial return
2. Companies do not invest enough in actions
that would prevent service issues
3. Customer service employees fail to display
good attitudes
4. Organizations fail to make it easy for
customers to complain or give feedback

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“Your most unhappy
customers are your
greatest source of
learning.”
- Bill Gates

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Principles of effective service recovery
systems
• Make it easy for customers to give feedback
• Service recovery should be proactive
• Recovery procedures need to be planned
• Recovery skills must be taught
• Recovery requires empowered employees
• Providing service guarantees

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Components of an effective service
recovery system
Do the Job Right
the First Time
Effective Complaint
Handling
Identify Service
Complaints
Resolve Complaints
Effectively
Learn from the
Recovery Experience
Increased Satisfaction
& Loyalty
 Conduct Root Cause
Analysis
 Develop Effective
System and Training in
Complaints Handling
 Conduct Research
 Monitor Complaints
 Develop “Complaints
as Opportunity
Culture”
Close the Loop via Feedback
+ =

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“Failure is success,
if we can learn
from it.”
- Malcolm Forbes

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Common customer complaints…
• Wrong information
• Poor customer service
attitude
• Overpricing
• Lack of adequate information
• Delays
• Unresponsiveness of service
providers

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Problems can be good for you!
• Identify where your
procedures are a pain in
the neck and need to be
simplified
• Reveal information that
is lacking, erroneous or
out of date

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Problems can be good for you!
• Identify staff who need
more training or closer
supervision
• Get important news
straight to the boss’s
desk (complaints have a
way of getting noticed)

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“One of the surest
signs of a bad or
declining relationship
with a customer is the
absence of complaints.
Nobody is ever that
satisfied, especially
over an extended
period of time.”
- Theodore Levitt

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Make it easy for customers to complain
• Provide comment cards
at key points of
customer contact
 Put the collection box in
plain view
 Print a statement on the
cards expressing your
genuine appreciation for
customer feedback,
promising a speedy reply

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Make it easy for customers to complain
• Welcome feedback on
your website
 Make it easy for
customers and visitors to
send you an email
message
 Do not require them to fill
out a detailed database
before giving you a piece
of their mind

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Exercise: Your personal service
experience
1. Think about the last time you experienced a
less-than-satisfactory service experience.
a) Did you complain? Why?
b) If you did not complain, explain why not.
Time: 10 mins

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“When everything
seems to be going
against you,
remember that the
airplane takes off
against the wind, not
with it.”
- Henry Ford

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Handling Difficult Customers
• Difficult customers are
those that fall outside
the comfort zone
• There are three
categories of difficult
customers:
1. Indecisive customers
2. Insistent (demanding)
customers
3. Irate (angry) customers

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Five Steps of Service Recovery
The five steps of service
recovery skill are designed to
help you:
1. Solve a problem
2. Restore the customer’s
comfort

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5-Step Service Recovery Skill
1. ACKNOWLEDGE the situation and the
discomfort
2. APOLOGIZE for the discomfort
3. ACCEPT responsibility for helping the
customer
4. ADJUST to solve the problem
5. ASSURE the problem has been solved

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Exercise: Recovering from a
complaint
Instructions:
1. Identify a complaint that you find difficult to handle.
2. Write out what you would say to the customer to:
 Acknowledge the problem and the discomfort it is causing.
Time: 10 mins

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Summary
• It is inevitable that things will go wrong
• Problems are opportunities for improvement
• Make it easy for customers to complain and
provide feedback
• Five steps (A’s) of service recovery
• Improve the product and/or service continuously
to “do it right the first time!”

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About
Operational
Excellence Consulting

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About Operational Excellence
Consulting
• Operational Excellence Consulting is a management
training and consulting firm that assists organizations in
improving business performance and effectiveness.
• The firm’s mission is to create business value for
organizations through innovative operational excellence
management training and consulting solutions.
• OEC takes a unique “beyond the tools” approach to enable
clients develop internal capabilities and cultural
transformation to achieve sustainable world-class excellence
and competitive advantage. For more information, please visit
www.oeconsulting.com.sg

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END OF PREVIEW
To download this presentation,
please visit:
www.oeconsulting.com.sg