For Better Customer Service, Offer Options, Not Apologies

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jagdip Singh, a professor of marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, explains his research team’s new findings about customer satisfaction. He says apologizing is often counterproductive and that offering customers different possible solutions is usually more effective. He discusses what companies can do to help service representatives lead interactions that leave a customer satisfied—whether or not the problem has been solved. Singh’s research is featured in the article "‘Sorry’ Is Not Enough" in the January–February 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone it's Kurt we need your help with our annual survey this is your last chance to help us get to know you so we can make idea cast even better for you
0:09.8	it's easy just go to HBR.org
0:13.0	podcast survey.
0:15.0	Again, that's HBR.org.
0:17.0	And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBR Cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green-Cormichael.
0:38.0	The Internet has revolutionized customer service.
0:42.5	You can take care of so many problems without ever talking to anybody.
0:46.9	It's been great for consumers, it's been great for companies, but it also means that the problems
0:51.9	that do escalate to a phone call with a customer service representative are often the hardest to solve.
0:58.0	Which is why it's much more important for companies to get those interactions right.
1:03.0	Our guest today studies what separates a satisfactory interaction
1:06.3	from an unsatisfactory one, and has new research that companies can learn from.
1:11.2	And I'm personally excited to talk to him because of my own
1:13.9	recent frustrating airline experience. Jaggedy Singh is a professor of
1:18.1	marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.
1:22.0	His team's research is featured in the article,
1:25.0	Sorry is Not Enough,
1:27.0	and the January-February 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.
1:31.0	Jaggedype, thank you so much for talking with us today.
1:34.0	You're welcome.
1:35.0	I'm glad to be here.
1:36.0	So I thought I would start by telling you a recent experience I had and then getting you to
	...

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