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    How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers
    Sharpening Your Skills
    How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers
    07 Oct 2019Sharpening Your Skills

    How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers

    by Sean Silverthorne
    07 Oct 2019| by Sean Silverthorne
    It happens to the best of companies. One fine day a public relations nightmare explodes and shatters your hard-won trust with customers. What should you do next?
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    JetBlue today is considered one of the top airlines in the world, and its customer ratings are as high as its airplanes. But not that long ago JetBlue was a prime business school example of a nightmare scenario displacing 130,000 passengers. The airline recovered—and that's the point of this collection of research and readings about head-on collisions between corporations and consumers, how to think through potential problems in advance, and course-correcting when the inevitable disaster occurs.


    A Good Place to Start

    JetBlue’s Valentine’s Day Crisis
    It was the Valentine's Day from hell for JetBlue employees and more than 130,000 customers whose flights were cancelled, delayed, or diverted. How did the airline make it right with customers and learn from its mistakes?


    The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall
    Product failures create managerial challenges for companies but market opportunities for competitors.

    Tesco’s Stumble into the US Market
    UK retailer Tesco was very successful penetrating foreign markets—until it set its sights on the United States.

    What Mark Zuckerberg Can Learn About Crisis Leadership from Starbucks
    While Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson stepped up to take responsibility, Mark Zuckerberg delayed action and side-stepped responsibility.

    Two Million Fake Accounts: Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo
    Coming out of the financial crisis, Wells Fargo was one of the world’s most successful banks. But then its sales culture went wild.

    Juul's Mission: Convince 1 Billion Smokers to Switch Habits
    Juul vaping products have become a cigarette alternative for adult smokers and a growing concern among parents of teens. What the company did initially to head off concerns.

    Cost-cutting Leads to Turbulence in the Airline Industry
    When a business known for delivering an exemplary customer experience faces cutbacks, what services get chopped?

    Fix This! Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?
    Car-buying sends shivers up the backbones of American consumers, so why hasn’t the industry stepped up to create a better experience?

    Research Papers

    Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact
    This study finds that customer anxiety during self-service transactions can reduce customers’ trust in the service provider. Operational design choices may help.

    Calculators for Women: When Identity Appeals Provoke Backlash
    With calculators designed for women and laundry products aimed at men, examples of identity-based labeling—or “identity appeals”—abound in advertising and marketing. Five studies show when and why they backfire.

    Image: iStock

    What's the best example you've seen of a company rebuilding trust with customers after a resounding service or product failure? What was the worst recovery attempt? Share your insights below.

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    In order to be published, comments must be on-topic and civil in tone, with no name calling or personal attacks. Your comment may be edited for clarity and length.
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