Give An Angry Customer Even More
Than They Asked For
In late July, 1997 my husband, Stephen and I parted with $250.00 of hard-earned
cash to get our home air ducts cleaned. Our house was fifteen years old and the
heating and ventilating ducts had never been serviced. It had been on the "to-do"
list since we purchased the house. When we stumbled across a $50.00 off
coupon in Clipper Magazine for a local cleaning service, "Pro Clean
Environmental Services," we scheduled the work.
Jeff Lynn, the General manager, was in our home for two hours with all his pipes,
hoses and machinery. When he announced that he was done, I wrote him a
check for $250.00 and thanked him for his time. Later that evening, my husband,
Stephen came storming down the stairs. Stephen is normally a very even-
tempered man. One of the few things that really riles him is feeling that he has
been ripped off by a service or repair person. Stephen fumed: "What did that guy
actually do today?" I replied - "I have no idea. I didn't follow him around the
house. He said he cleaned all the ducts."
Well, my detail-oriented and frugal husband had inspected each duct with a
flashlight to be sure he was getting good value for his money. Good thing he did!
Stephen was furious to discover that the ducts hardly looked any cleaner than
before the Pro Clean visit. And, several of the ducts hadn't been touched at all,
although we had paid to have all of the ducts in our house cleaned. Since we had
paid by check, not credit card, we were vulnerable to being ripped off by an
unscrupulous company we knew nothing about.
I called the company the next morning and spoke to Jeff, the man who had done
the work. Jeff expressed great surprise and concern, and scheduled a return trip
to our home the following day. Jeff could have said, "Too bad. That's the best we
can do," since he already had our check. But as we came to learn, Pro Clean
knows how to treat a customer.
The afternoon Jeff was scheduled to return to our house, a tractor-trailer
overturned, spilling 1000 gallons of liquid asphalt on the highway and grinding
traffic to a halt. Jeff called me an hour before he was supposed to arrive at my

replaced by admiration for their approach to remedying the problem.
When you are servicing customers, mistakes will always happen. It's how you
respond to them that matters. When treated well, a dissatisfied customer will
become your best ambassador.
pertinent.com