Earning From Your Mistakes: How to Turn “I’m Sorry” Into More Sales

Sooner or later, every business makes a mistake that results into a bad customer experience.  However, how you react can determine whether or not the experience will have a lasting negative or positive outcome for your business.

Here’s how to earn from your mistakes:

Make sure you have a current customer email list. Even if you do not have a regular email-marketing program in place, you should keep and maintain a clean and current customer email list.  You should segment the list by location, product, service or buying habits (online, in store, etc.).

React quickly. Once you learn about a customer service or product mishap, you need to react immediately.  Formulate a crisis communications plan so you can implement a fix immediately.   Look for ways that you can not only communicate the fix, but promote it and tell customers why everyone will benefit.

View a mistake as an opportunity. Look at a mistake as an opportunity for you to build loyalty with customers and think about ways you can use it to provide customers with an unexpected surprise.

Give away something of value. Reward customers for having to deal with your mistake.

Be human.  People will forgive an honest mistake, so be humble and ask forgiveness.  Even customers who may not have been affected by the mistake will appreciate hearing about it from you, and you will head off any negative feedback they may see online.