Making amends is a two-part process

When things go wrong, the importance on focusing on the overall experience, rather than just the problem, is beautifully highlighted in Sean D’Souza’s New Zealand Herald article ‘Fix the experience – not just the fish’.

Often, when a service provider is challenged for a failing in some way, they focus purely on fixing the problem. Whilst this is hugely important, it’s only one part of a two-part process that will create client or customer satisfaction.

D’Souza notes:

“You can try to fix the problem the best you can, but hey, that’s part of your job. That’s what the customer paid for. You’re not doing them a favour when you fix the problem. But you are doing them a favour when you fix the experience.”

Providing an overall experience that more than compensates for the original disappointment or failure is essential if you really want to put things right and keep your clients or customers speaking well of you, using you again and recommending you to others.

As D’Souza says:

“Our natural response is to get defensive. To justify our actions. To fix the problem. But the client wants more than just for you to fix the problem. You’ve got to fix the experience.”

Find out if the metaphor of ‘salty fish’ may be letting you down and read the full article here.