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Every Woman’s Customer Service Nightmare
October 13, 2009 – 3:56 amIf you slight a customer, and its a very personal service or product, they are probably going to be angrier than if they purchased a flat soda from you.
Spa services are very expensive. The clientele is high maintenance (I say this with the best of intention–we all love to be pampered, but not all of us can afford this). If you mess up you are going to hear about it.
This morning my colleague forwarded me a blog on spa treatments. In her blog ”Defending Pandora” Kate Hutchinson, Boston-based blogger gave a painfully personal and up-close account of the her nightmare waxing experience at the spa Elizabeth Grady.
When it came time for Kate’s treatment her favorite esthetician was not available. She had a new esthetician working on her and the session ended up being brutally painful. She was very unsatisfied with the finished product.
The Elizabeth Grady spa was unwilling to take care of her in the way of a reimbursement or credit. Or even an apology.
Every Customer Interaction is a Defining Moment
Spas in New York and Boston are like Starbucks. There is one on every block. It’s very easy to lose a customer because they will just go to the spa on the next block.
Word of mouth is very important to women. Especially with something so personal, we tell our friends where to go. Every customer interaction is a defining moment. When your frontline workers get sloppy if can hurt your organization more than a bad wax job.
3 Responses to “Every Woman’s Customer Service Nightmare”
I commented on her blog too… I agree with your comment on frontline workers. But I think the problem in this case is even bigger. Certainly, the frontline worker in this case did not handle the situation well. But that happens – what is as important is how you handle the resulting complaint. In this case, I think they really dropped the ball.
In this case, it probably would not have taken much to satisfy her -at least to the point where she wouldn’t have written the blog entry. I find its often amazing how far a simple, heartfelt apology will go. If the manager took the time to really listen to Kate, empathized with her situation and offered to fix it, I would hazard a guess that would have sufficed. It might not have made her come back, but at least it would have avoided the public complaints.
My point is that it doesn’t always take free gift certificates or heavy discounts. But the demands to prove her “injury” was too much.
Here you have a customer who has been there many a time and because of one situation that could easily have been rectified, you not only lost a customer, but now have to withstand all the bad PR.
Not so smart…
By Steven Winokur on Oct 13, 2009
Hey Steven
Thank you for your comments. Actually studies show that an apology goes incredibly far. The correlation between apologizing and customer satisfaction is so high it almost should incentivize companies to screw up just so they can take care of the customer afterward (jk).
In all seriousness it would not have cost the spa anything to say sorry.
The Time Warners of the world do not apologize and will not until they see the rate at which they are losing customers due to just plain ol’ bad manners.
B
By Blake Landau on Oct 13, 2009
Its interesting that as people go higher in the chain of luxury, the more you see a higher level of customer expectations. If a janitor is impolite, possible a complaint to the supervisor. A problem with a Verizon rep, maybe a letter to the corporation. However, a problem at the spa, a physician, or any place where there is real choice, the money walks. Free enterprise I suppose at its best
By Steven Kingley on Oct 13, 2009