Planning ahead for those rare occasions when something goes wrong will pay off. Turning a bad situation into a good one takes a little training to empower your front line staff.
Allow your frontline crew to fix the problem immediately and apologise instead of making the upset customer wait further whilst somebody finds a manager. Most angry customers are not looking to rip the company off, they simply want their problem fixed and to be heard.
Once you have allowed for that, it is a good investment to over deliver on expectations. If you can really please that previously upset customer by doing the unexpected (over deliver) then that customer will be a fan for life and tell many others about how you worked wonders for them.
Have a service recovery plan in place and make sure frontline staff are empowered to put things right.
