How should companies prepare for customer service failures and complaints?

Answer: Companies should prepare for customer service failures by training frontline employees, monitoring recurring complaints, and creating consistent recovery processes that turn problems into trust-building experiences.

I am a very optimistic guy, so it might surprise you that I’m writing an article about failure. However, in the CX world, failure is inevitable. No company or person is perfect, although it’s a lofty goal. There will be complaints and problems. Perfection is not reality. 

When I interviewed Bill Price, Amazon’s first global vice president of customer service and founder and president of Driva Solutions, he talked about his job interview with Jeff Bezos. When asked, “What’s your definition of customer service?” Price responded, “The best service is no service,” which eventually became the title of one of his books. (Read the article featuring three powerful ideas from Amazon.) 

The point Price was making was that we should strive to be so good that customers never have to call for customer support. But inevitably, some will need to, and that’s where we have to plan for failure.  

Failure isn’t the problem. Failing to prepare for it is. The best companies don’t just try to avoid mistakes. They design and plan for what happens next when there are mistakes. Properly planning means we must: 

  • Properly train frontliners: Train your people to answer questions and respond to customer complaints. While this may seem obvious, my annual CX research shows that one of the top customer pain points is dealing with employees who lack the knowledge to help. That often leads to multiple transfers that force customers to repeat their story. Customers hate that! 
  • Monitor trending complaints: We must monitor the most common complaints and fix them so future customers don’t have the same complaints. In other words, rather than responding to complaints, we spot trending problems and determine their root causes, so we can eliminate them or at least mitigate them going forward. 
  • Create a clear and consistent recovery process: The important word here is consistent. Even with your best effort, there will be certain issues that continue to cause customers to reach out for help or to complain. When you identify those issues, create a process that everyone follows every time. This goes back to properly training frontliners. 

As much as we want to eliminate failure, problems, and complaints will happen. These three ideas are a starting point to help you plan for when they do. Share these ideas with your team and use them as a conversation starter to explore other ways to plan for and respond to failure.  

It’s not just about fixing the problem. It’s about fixing the customer. When customers reach out, they’re not just bringing you an issue. They are bringing frustration, uncertainty, and sometimes even doubt about your brand. How you respond determines what happens next. Get failure right, and you don’t just solve a problem. You build trust, create confidence, and turn a Moment of Misery™ into a Moment of Magic®.

Related: Great Customer Service Comes From Standards, Not Good Intentions