How To Approach Customer Service For E-Commerce

Does your CX team keep a "bad customer blocklist?" 

I found an ACTUAL LIST circulating years ago - it was a list of customers that were SO BAD that we just cut them off entirely and refused to work with them any longer.

I think everyone working in retail can understand why.

I took a call like this woman in the stock photo once and it was heated! The call ended with one additional customer on the "block list." 

It was the worst service call I ever took and I felt terrible about it.

I thought, "if this person can be so passionate about petty issues like small shipping delays, I wonder if they would be equally passionate about small positive experiences?"

The next bad call was about a problem a doctor was having with his scrub pockets. He kept mashing his pens into them and they were ripping after 6 months of heavy use, which is to be expected. He was so angry about this he wrote a 1 star Yelp review and filed a BBB complaint.

So I called him, and instead of pointing out the obvious (that any pocket would rip on any garment after this much abuse), I just let him dig into me. 

When I didn't reciprocate, he let down his defenses and realized that yelling at me wasn't necessary. 

I apologized and asked him if he would accept a full refund, I would personally see to it that we overnighted him the same order of scrubs, AND we'd also customize them with reinforced pocket seams at no cost, just for the trouble.

A few days later he updated his review with passionate praise for how we turned this around, saying at the end, 

"So, let me say this I will not be buying my scrubs or lab coats for myself or my employees anywhere else this company has my business for life! Thank you Medelita for our of this world service!"

From then on I realized that every bad customer experience is an opportunity to create the best customer experience.

I told everyone in CX: "Just surprise them by giving them what they want and more then see what happens."

The costs of implementing this strategy were actually minimal - only a small fraction of people fit this category. 

When these people started getting what they wanted....they were so excited to have "won," that they often became our top customer evangelists. 

In the end, everyone wins.