“The Silver Lining: How a Disastrous Service Story Transformed into a Happy Ending”

I recently saw a post about customer service after failure, and it reminded me of an experience I had much earlier in my work history.

The year was 2003, and I was a 19-year department head at a local grocery store. One of my department’s offerings was catering trays for private events, typically happy stuff like birthdays and the like. One Saturday morning, around about 10 am, a lady came to my department to pick up an order. She was in a black dress and had a very subdued demeanor. The lady, who, for the sake of the story we will call Mrs. Jones, handed me her order receipt, and I proceeded to the walk-in refrigerator to retrieve her order. As I scanned the orders in the walk-in, I didn't find Mrs. Jones' order "I must have missed it; I'll check again."

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Three checks later, no order was found, "Mrs. Jones, could the order be under a different name?" Nope, not that lucky. So, at this point, I faced the music, we messed up somewhere, and Mrs. Jones’ order was not ready. I apologetically delivered the news to Mrs. Jones and offered some solutions. Her reaction was instant hysteria; you see, Mrs. Jones was picking up sandwich trays for the reception following her father’s funeral on this particular Saturday morning. My heart sank, but I couldn't stay paralyzed for long because we needed to figure this out! It was all hands on deck, including coworkers from other departments; we finished an order that would typically take 2 hours inside of 30 minutes. At this point, I was feeling pretty ok, and more importantly Mrs. Jones was pretty content with our recovery and on schedule for her tough day. I loaded the trays into a cart and exited the store with Mrs. Jones in order to load up her vehicle. I finished putting the trays in her car and shut the trunk. Then, I turned to Mrs. Jones to offer my apologies and condolences one last time; she was very gracious and thanked my team and me for our recovery efforts. As I turned to walk away, I heard an awful cry ring out and turned back to see Mrs. Jones hysterical; I quickly saw why.? Mrs. Jones's front driver’s side tire was completely flat, “Man, this poor lady can’t catch a break,” Mrs. Jones started fumbling in her purse for her roadside assistance card, all the while knowing this couldn’t be resolved in time. At this moment, I saw an opportunity to help this lady, and maybe the thought of a little atonement entered my mind (if I am being honest). I quickly asked Mrs. Jones for her keys, and for her trust, she handed me her keys and said she trusted me (despite that not working out so well last time). I quickly pulled the trays out of the trunk and retrieved the spare tire and jack, thankfully, I grew up with a pops that taught me how to do these types of things. I changed the tire in what felt like pit stop speed, then loaded the flat tire and trays into Mrs. Jones’ car and handed her back her keys. Mrs. Jones gave me the most gracious hug and sped off to what was going to be the toughest part of an already tough day.

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So, what did I learn from this roller coaster of a day? Sometimes, the times we fail our customers but then respond in a big way can have more positive impact than the hopefully typical and somewhat boring meeting of the expectation. This proved true in this case; Mrs. Jones returned the next week with a thank you card signed by her entire family, the lady whose day I made way more complicated than it needed to be hand-delivered a thank you card. No “normal” transaction ever ended this way.

Since that day, I’ve spent my career trying as hard as possible to avoid another “Mrs. Jones experience,” but I am humble and honest enough to admit that sometimes misunderstandings and mistakes have happened. During these times, I recall Mrs. Jones and how even the bleakest of situations can be an opportunity for game-changing customer service!