Good customer service can be achieved from any situation. We just had a situation in our company where there was a miscommunication about whether a carpet should be salvage or replaced in the customer’s home. We are in the fire and flood restoration business and were called by the insurance company to handle a water damage claim for this customer.

Well to make a long story short the insurance agent thought we should have replaced the carpet rather than dry and restore it. It was his opinion that we should also pay to replace the carpet and that the insurance company would not be reimbursing us the $3,000.00 it cost for the new carpet.

Now I don’t know what got into this insurance fellow this particular day but this was still a golden opportunity. What we did next is something our competition doesn’t do and it is my belief this is the reason we are the busiest as well as the most profitable fire and flood restoration company for a several hundred mile radius.

What did we do?

Even though the carpet replacement in our opinion was not our responsibility we apologized for any miscommunication that happened and said we would rectify the situation right away by installing and paying for the new carpet. So there you have it we paid out of our pocket an extra $3,000.00 for the claim and you probably want to know why this is a golden opportunity.

There are actually many golden opportunities here but I will list just 4 big ones.

1. The Best Customers because Law of Reciprocity states: People repay in kind, whereby the application is “give what you want to receive.”

2. Higher Prices because our customers always know they can count on our company no matter what.

3. More Referrals because you have positive customer energy and never any bad energy surfacing from of unhappy customers.

4. More Jobs because we are the company you can count on to do the job right rather than giving a story why things didn’t work out.

I don’t know of to many companies that like to give refunds for their products or services but they truly could be missing out on a golden opportunity. Some companies will in fact not give a refund at all and assume the job of judge and jury with the customer. You know where the customer is always right until they are tried by the judge and jury of the company they are trying to get a refund from.

I have even seen a company right off a customer for $5.00 because they judged the customer as being unfair in their demands. The company may have been right in their judgment and won the fight but didn’t realize that they lost the war.

Did the company have any idea of the long term value of their customer? In other words not just that sale but how much they will buy from that company in their lifetime including referrals and repeats of those referrals. Oh yah and referrals of those referrals.

A company that would right off a customer for $5.00 obviously has not calculated the cost of their poor business judgment and bad behavior towards the customer. When you make sure all your customers are happy there is an effect I refer to as Compound Customers. It is the calculation of how your business will grow exponentially when you make sure every customer is a cheerleading customer who then becomes a repeat customer as well as refers you to all their friends.

Even telling this secret to my competition still doesn’t affect us because most still won’t have the faith that this extra cost works out in the long run. They are just too focused on lack consciousness and the $3,000.00 they feel they were going to loose. I have had competitors go out of business on this issue because they would not bend a little and the insurance company stopped using them.

So when it comes to marketing don’t miss the opportunity customer refunds can be for increased business. It is all in what you focus on. Do you and your business focus on lack or prosperity for all? Remember ‘What You Focus On Grows.’