I got a few emails this morning from people experiencing the same kind of “technically correct” service that Mathew described. In every case, it led to a bad customer experience. Take for instance the email exchange I had with a customer a few moments ago.
She had a coupon that expired. Technically, the coupon’s expired and no longer valid. But it’s a coupon for $10 and we’d lose a lot more than just that by saying no. Instead, I credited her account with it and kept going.
Don’t get wrapped up in legalities and technicalities. They only lead to bad customer experiences.
Agreed. You’re more likely to make a fan out of a customer by giving them what they need, rather than pointing out how they’re wrong. I had a customer tell us that a piece of content in our app was incorrect. It actually wasn’t, but rather than tell that person how wrong he was, I thanked him for pointing it out and told him to let us know if he came across any more “errors”. He was more likely to walk away satisfied that we listened, rather than disgruntled about being called out on his own error.
Great story Marianne! And you’re right – he was just trying to help out. I’d much rather have a customer that wanted to help than one who didn’t even care about using my app.