Inevitably, you or your company will screw up. Maybe today, maybe next week, maybe six months from now. How you respond will show what you’re made of.

Photo by Elnur

When Dr. David Dao was beaten and dragged off a United Express flight last April, United Airlines’ upper management very publicly botched the initial response to the incident. Their reputation has not yet recovered.

When two African-American men were asked to leave and then arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks, that company was similarly under the microscope. Unlike United, Starbucks’ management has performed impressively.

What’s the best way to respond when things go south? Customer support expert Len Markidian points to Disney’s approach to service failures:

Their approach to service recovery is a five-step process, easily remembered with the acronym H.E.A.R.D:

• Hear: let the customer tell their entire story without interruption. Sometimes, we just want someone to listen.
• Empathize: Convey that you deeply understand how the customer feels. Use phrases like “I’d be frustrated, too.”
• Apologize: As long as it’s sincere, you can’t apologize enough. Even if you didn’t do whatever made them upset, you can still genuinely be apologetic for the way your customer feels (e.g., I’m always sorry that a customer feels upset).
• Resolve: Resolve the issue quickly, or make sure that your employees are empowered to do so. Don’t be afraid to ask the customer: “what can I do to make this right?”
• Diagnose: Get to the bottom of why the mistake occurred, without blaming anyone; focus on fixing the process so that it doesn’t happen again.

Based on this criteria, how has Starbucks done so far? 

• Hear: Within days of the incident, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson traveled to Philadelphia and met personally with the two men. He also met with Philadelphia’s mayor and police commissioner.
• Empathize: Prior to the meeting, Johnson issued a statement saying the incident had “a reprehensible outcome.” Referring to the two men, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz told CBS News that “the reason the call [to the police] was made is because they were African-American.”
• Apologize: Both Johnson and Schultz apologized publicly to the men. Johnson also did so in person.
• Resolve: Starbucks quickly escalated the response to the highest level of the company. Schultz told Gayle King at CBS This Morning that they have asked the men, “What can Starbucks, given our resources and the capabilities we have — they have an interest in real estate — what can we do to help advise them and support their own business endeavors?…Given the resources we do have, we will provide them with a foundation of learning, and provide them with an opportunity to be part of our company, either directly or indirectly, as a result of this situation.” It’s fair to surmise that at the very least, money will be changing hands.
• Diagnose: Starbucks has announced plans to close 8,000 company-owned stores for several hours of racial-bias training, at a cost that’s been estimated at as much as $12 million. They clearly don’t want anything like this to happen again.

Shultz also met with the store manager who called the police. Although he made it clear she is no longer with the company, Starbucks has avoided the temptation to blame the whole thing on her. 

Here are some tips to follow the next time you or your company disappoints a customer:

1. Make a point of accepting all of the blame, even if you believe your customer is partially at fault.
2. Don’t point fingers. Starbucks didn’t publicly blame the two men for insisting on staying, or the police for making an arrest. Your client doesn’t care that Corporate changed the policy, or that your production department was shorthanded, or that the sales assistant misfiled the paperwork.
3. Make it right. Give the client much more in return than they lost — and do it quickly.
4. Once the dust settles, figure out what caused the problem, and how you can prevent it from happening again. 

Your best opportunity to demonstrate your customer service chops is when something has gone horribly wrong. With the right mindset, you can correct a big mistake and position yourself as a true professional.

Question: What’s the worst customer service fail/mess you’ve ever had to clean up? What did you do to resolve it, and what did you learn from the experience? You can leave a comment by clicking here.