You don’t like it? Have another!

Let’s imagine for a moment. Let’s imagine that we go into the hospital, for say …  a bit of mild cosmetic surgery to get rid of that unsightly mole on the tip of our nose. Let’s further imagine that when we wake up the next morning we find that our right foot is missing. One might imagine we would be a slight bit perturbed. We might be inclined to do a bit of ass kicking, except we seem to be missing a foot. So of course in our perturbed state we have some very creative words to share with the hospital, and expect some serious foot licking from the hospital (again a bit lacking).

We would generally NOT be satisfied with, "We re so sorry for the mistake. Here is a coupon for $10 off of your next surgery in the hospital."

So why does it make sense for any other company do use the same appeasement technique? I know this is an extreme example, and not very likely to happen, but it is a good thing hospitals don’t actually model their "calm the angry customer" methods after oh so many businesses out there.

Like when my sister bought a some furniture at a discount furniture store. One piece arrived promptly. The other took three months. With umpteen promises broken, and every excuse in the book. I mean come on now do you really expect us to believe that the dog ate your truck? And when they finally DID deliver, by way of apology they offer a coupon for the next sale at the store. In other words, we are sorry we screwed up. Spend more money here and we will give you a discount. Hmmmmm.

Another example. I rarely complain about products to anyone. If I don’t like it I just don’t buy it. But I happen to like Listerine products … except their newest alcohol free product line. Whatever they used to replace alcohol is in my mind downright foul. So I actually said something. Their response? Send me some coupons. I guess it makes a certain kind of sense. If you give a completely irrational response to a complaint, you will confuse people enough that they will simply stop complaining.

Just goes to show you once again that "Customer Service" has absolutely nothing to do with servicing customers. We have become a nation of oxymorons!