Imaginative Service: The Painful Side of Service

“Wear your pain like an oyster wears its grain of sand.”  These words were buried in an editorial by Victoria Hick in a July, 2009 issue of the Dallas Morning News.  The poignant piece was about the death of a close friend.  It could also have been about remarkable service recovery.  “Manage your service hiccups like an oyster…”

Delivering service always carries a potential for customer pain.  Service is generally delivered by people and “to err is human.”  Service providers know that; customers do as well.  What characterizes the superstars is not zero service defects, but rather how they turn a grain of service sand into a pearl.  It requires a sincere understanding of the customer’s pain and the communication of that understanding.  It takes atonement that encases the pain with an appropriate and authentic gesture of sorrow.  And, it involves the demonstration of a commitment to better protect customers from future pain.

How well are you inoculating your customers from service pain?  What lessons are you learning from previous service failures?