Product or service, sometimes things don’t go as expected.

Maybe you’ve taken too long to deliver, delivered over budget or made a mistake that cost your client a significant sum of money.

Maybe your product didn’t meet expectations or was lost or damaged during shipping.

Maybe a weird bug prevented some of your customers to use your software for a few hours or worst, a few days.

No matter how wrong things go, you always get a chance to make things right and it’s that moment that will define how customers perceive you as an individual, company or product.

It’s funny how when people complain about a product or service, they’ll often complain about the lack of empathy they felt or how horribly they were treated by customer service more than about the problem itself.

I take great pride in the fact that we have very close to 0% return on Cardstack orders. That doesn’t mean it’s always been a smooth ride and that we didn’t face any issues, but just that we decided to make things right when we faced problems. This often meant forgetting about the short-term loss and focusing on the long-term benefits of having happy customers.

I think I prefer to receive praises on the service than on the product — A great service experience gives your customers a great story to tell.

And that’s not just the case for products, I’ve faced similar situations on the consulting side and there’s always a chance to fix things with a well-intentioned client. Every single time it happened, it made the relationship with the client stronger.

Taking a hit once in a while doesn’t mean you’re losing the game, just that you’re playing to win it.