If you ever doubt the power of a Negative Cheerleader check out this YouTube video UNITED BREAKS GUITARS.
A Cheerleader customer will tell about 5 people or so. A Negative Cheerleader will probably tell 20-25 people. When Dave Carroll a musician had his guitar broken by United Airlines he decided to do a YouTube video song about his experience. He’s even done a United Breaks Guitars Song 2: The sequel! Last time I checked it had over 7 million hits. Check it out for yourself on YouTube or go to Davecarrollmusic.com for all the dirt.
I’ll have to say my experience with a few of the big carriers has been similar. The obvious lesson for all of us is we should try our best not to create a negative Cheerleader. (And if we do just pray they can’t sing!)
That’s really what I’m thinking about when I do callbacks–50% is to make my client happy, but the other half is to prevent this phenomenon.
Dan
carpet cleaner blog
I agree with Dan.
But we’ve also found an interesting phenomena when it comes to call backs and unsatisfied customers (which are rare).
Handled correctly, these once volitile people turn to mush! They become our best cheerleaders. I think most people expect that you aren’t going to do anything about it (it’s just kind of the way customer service has gone these days…especially with a lot of the BIG companies). If you take the time to listen to the person, and make an effort to fix it, they are stunned. Then they go telling everyone what you did becaues it’s such an anomaly and WHAM…a cheerleader.