Be Your Customer's Hero

CHAPTER 13

Everyone’s Been Burned Before

Let’s face it: Every one of our customers has been burned before. Somewhere, somehow, sometime, an organization gave her a terrible customer experience—one where she felt abused, disrespected, and even taken advantage of. Most likely it’s happened more than once.

As we discussed in Chapter 6, we can allow negative experiences with customers to camp out in our minds long after the experience has passed. Similarly, customers can hold on to the negative experiences they have had with businesses. In many cases, these bad experiences don’t get erased from the customer’s mind when they’re over; instead, they leave lasting scars that eventually become defense mechanisms.

I also brought up the expression “Fool ...