As I mentioned in my last Post, I spent 14 years working for the John Lewis Partnership. For those who are not aware, John Lewis is a leading Department Store and Supermarket through it's Waitrose Food Shops. It has had an excellent reputation for customer experience for over 100 years and operates on an innovative employee ownership model.
When I joined the partnership as a Management Trainee, I rightly started on the shop floor as a sales assistant. As such, I went on many training courses to learn the way of the 'Partnership.'
As well as the well quoted 'under promise and over deliver' guidance, we new partners were taught; the other revelation was the goodwill account. It was explained to us budding Partners that sometimes circumstances meant that the Partnership had done nothing wrong, and neither had the customer, but there was a need to make the customer feel good about a complaint. This is where the Goodwill Account came into play. It was a way of refunding the cost of goods or providing a goodwill payment to a customer even when the Partnership was not in the wrong.
This simple financial mechanism ensured that the customer went away with a warm feeling, but also allowed Partners (staff) to do the right thing. By cleverly setting up as an internal account, it also meant that the amount spent could easily be monitored for both under or overuse in any department or store. The cost of Goodwill was seen very much as part of the 'marketing' of the Partnership and its focus on customers.
This approach genuinely created countless moments of delight for the Partnerships customers. It also goes to the heart of why the John Lewis is held in such high esteem by so many of its customers.
So when you are thinking about customer recovery it's not good enough just to recover the customer, it is an excellent opportunity to delight the customer and create long lasting relationship based on value.
Next time how you can get to the voice of the customer faster and more easily than you might think.