Customer service agents – from operations managers to call center supervisors – all want to provide efficient, quick mitigation after a poor experience. Cross-departmental teams seek to hit service metrics around customer complaints and achieve industry service rankings in hopes of retaining their most loyal customers. But what if your organization’s mitigation efforts aren’t actually working to achieve those scores or retain loyal customers? Despite the fact that your efforts are standard practice in your business or industry, it’s possible that your customers may not agree that you are, in fact, effectively mitigating their problems.

Mistakes happen in life and in business. Regardless of top-notch products, systems and procedures, training and good intentions, poor customer experiences are inevitable. While businesses can’t always undo or fix that bad experience, they can do their best to not only apologize but mitigate the situation through a customer recovery effort.