Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Now everything’s going along fine you come home from work one day you open up your mailbox and there’s your monthly credit card statement you open it up as you’re going up the elevator, hold on something doesn’t look right as soon as you get upstairs you go to your files, you pull out your banking files, you open up the credit card file you take out last month’s credit card statement and you put it side by side with this month’s credit card statement. You start to compare “Hey there’s a hotel that’s on my card again this month, I didn’t go back again this month, I already paid it last time, there’s a restaurant, same restaurant, same number…clothing store clothes… Hey! this bank is taking charges off of last month’s account and they’re putting it on again, they’re double billing me, this Bank is ripping me off!” 

Which way does your loyalty go up or down? How far down?  Drops like a rock! How many people do you tell? Everybody! You pick up the phone and you call the credit-card office, give them a piece of your mind “Hi, can I help you?” “Yeah you can help me, I got a problem here with my credit card!” she goes “Oh sir what seems to be the problem” you say “You.. tell you the problem you pull up this month’s statement and last one statement and put them side by side, you got three charges on there a hotel, a restaurant, a credit, clothing, so I didn’t go back a second time.. you’re billing me twice.. you’re ripping me off!” she goes “Oh sir yeah I can see exactly what you mean” he goes “Of course you can see what I mean you think I’m crazy?!” she says “No sir, that’s right, I didn’t say you were crazy, upset? yes but crazy? No ”What are you gonna do about it?  she goes – “it’s done sir”  “It’s done? What do you mean it’s done?”  “it’s done, I’ve posted a credit for the full amount of those three charges to your credit card you’ll see it offsetting your outstanding balance on next month’s statement and sir please accept my apologies for the inconvenience”  you’re still upset you say “Don’t let it happen again” boom! hang up the phone.

Where does your loyalty go up or down? Up. How high? Little bit. She fixed the problem. That afternoon somebody calls you, the branch manager.. He says “I’d like to speak to you”  and you go “Yup, this is me!” and he says “Uh sir, I’m the branch manager from your bank mr. so-and-so” and and you say “What do you want?!?” and he says “Well, I was informed by one of our credit-card officers that we inconvenienced you with a small billing error on your credit card statement and well sir” and you say “Yeah well never mind she fixed the problem”  and he says “Well sir ma’am I know that he fixed the problem but I just thought I’d give you a call and well see if we could fix things up a little better with you”  and you say “ Well, what do you mean” and he says “Um sir, I was looking through your account records and I noticed that you have your checking account, your credit card and your car loan all with our branch for the bank” and you say “Yeah, yeah that’s true” he says “Well, sir as I was going through the records I noticed what kind of car you bought” you go “Yeah sir we’ve never had anybody buy as nice a car as you bought with a loan from our branch” and you go “Well, got a drive you know” and he goes “Um sir you know if you don’t mind I’m kind of an aficionado of new cars the next time you come down to the branch would you mind looking me up so I can take a look at your brand-new carand you say “Yeah sure what’d you say your name was and he says the name is so-and-so and sir if you would write down my direct phone line then if you need any other banking services you can call upon me personally I’ll be happy to take care of you” and you say  “Sure sure, what’d you say your name was” and you write that down,  you write his number down on one of those little scraps of paper next to the telephone honestly how long you gonna keep that?  A couple of days, maybe a week and then where does it go into the garbage can.  You’re about to hang up and you say to the guy “You know, I didn’t expect you to make this phone call” and he says “To be perfectly honest sir we didn’t expect to make the mistake but as long as it happened I wanted to use it as an opportunity to let you know how much we appreciate that you do your banking with our branch of the bank” and now you’re in a good mood you say “Well, thank you very much have a good night”and he says “Thank you sir thank you good night” click-click Where does your loyalty go up or down?  Oh yeah, well it goes back up to where it was before the problem ever happened.

There’s a phrase for this we use in the service training industry we call it “Service Recovery” and you know what it’s a good name because look recovered the ground that you lost it’s like fully in a hole and digging your way back out hey but look what you put your customer through fortunately this bank realized that when a problem happens you can use it as a big opportunity to increase your customers loyalty and a week later you come home and you open up the mailbox and there’s another package from the bank, but you’re not expecting anything, you’re going up the elevator you open it up and inside there’s a nice letter and it’s something made out of leather what is this you start to read the letter it says dear Mr… you, I was recently informed by your branch manager mr. so-and-so that we inconvenienced you with a small billing error on your credit card statement which has since been rectified upon review of your account, I note that you have your checking account credit card and car loan all with the branch of the bank. As an expatriate in Thailand, at which point in reading the letter you realize what you’re reading is one of those highly personalized, computerized letters.  As an expatriate in Thailand, I thought you might be interested in some of the other services we can provide and the next paragraph talked about the foreign currency deposits you could get through the bank and the one after that talked about the insurance policies you could buy through the bank and then when after that talked about the trading you can do on the Thai stock exchange through your branch of the bank and then it said should any of these services be of interest to you please feel free to call your branch manager Mr. so-and-so at his direct phone line.. and there’s that phone number again what are you gonna do with this piece of paper? Put it in your files and the next time you need service you know where to go and then it says “PS as a gesture of goodwill and appreciation for your understanding in that prior matter and close with this letter you will find a small travel wallet compliments of the bank” It’s one of those cheap ones they give away when you open a new account. It doesn’t cost them very much but you did not expect it.  Where does your loyalty to the bank go?  Boom! It shoots up and then over time you get your foreign currency deposits and your insurance and you do your trading with the stock exchange with them.