Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, 3rd Edition

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Make Recovery a Point of Pride

The true test of an organization’s commitment to service quality isn’t the stylishness of the pledge it makes in its marketing literature, it is the way the organization responds when things go wrong for the customer.

—Ron Zemke

Father of Knock Your Socks Off Service

All around the country, frontline service people have to deal with customers who experience service failure. It’s not their fault, anymore than it’s the customers’ (although it’s worth pointing out that about 30 percent of all problems with products and services are indeed caused by customers).

No service system is or ever will be 100 percent perfect. Sooner or later, something will go wrong. When it does, how your front line responds can not only ...