Apology and forgiveness: how do you regain customer trust when things go wrong?

It is undeniable that at some point your business will suffer a failure that disappoints customers. The measure of a company is defined in these moments.

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Customers see your true colors at these times more than any others. How you explain, react, remove the pain and take accountability for your actions signals loud and clear your sentiment and the collective 'heart' of your organization.

Follow these seven points for how to prepare, react and recover from the inevitable. Three high-profile customer experiences illustrate their importance and how to execute them.

Menu Foods--the manufacturer of wet dog and cat food sold by the millions under private-label brands at major stores such as PETCO and Walmart--has been trying to recover since March of this year from the discovery that some of their wet cat and dog food was produced with adulterated wheat gluten. Multitudes of illnesses and deaths of beloved family pets are being attributed to this situation.

JetBlue's customer experience meltdown began with a winter 2007 snowstorm--when they canceled 1,096 flights, stranding thousands of passengers, flight attendants and pilots.

Con Edison's New York City customers experienced a 10-day power outage in the summer of 2006.

If I had the ear of these company executives, I'd pass along these tips:

* Put as much forethought into planning customer experience recovery as you do planning IT and natural disaster recovery. What are the early warning signals to tip off a potential crisis? Who are the cross-company members of a "customer recovery" unit to brainstorm solutions? Are you nimble enough to spring into action, identify the issue, plan a recovery, and implement within a day? How about within hours? That's what your customers expect and deserve.

Menu Foods was widely criticized for the way in which it handled the recall of potentially contaminated pet food because the company did not immediately respond to and acknowledge the problem. The first precautionary recall announcement was made on March 16. It wasn't until March 23 that the company began contacting customers. Likewise, when Con Edison experienced the 10-day power outage, CEO Kevin Burke didn't emerge with either an explanation, an apology or a plan for the first few days of the outage.

The better you are in your customers' eyes, the more swiftly they expect you to respond. JetBlue missed an opportunity to immediately get back on track to deliver the service their customers had come to expect because there was not a robust operational contingency plan in place to address the challenges created by that storm.

* Apologize. Be humble. JetBlue had the advantage in their situation because of their service record and history; they began in good emotional stead with their customers. David Neeleman, JetBlue's CEO, said he felt "mortified" and "humiliated" and began to take action immediately. Neeleman exercised even greater concern recently when he stepped aside as CEO to hand the operations leadership over to Dave Barger, who he said was better prepared to lead that side of the business.

* Empathize, put yourself in the customer's shoes, and make sure the customers know you care. Menu Foods missed a great opportunity here. People want to see a dog and cat food company show great empathy for the pet-ownership emotional connection. Unfortunately, customers appear to be experiencing an orchestrated set of actions that seem to have gone through extensive legal reviews before being released to the public.

* Turn "recovery" into an opportunity that asks your customers, "Who else" would respond this way? For example, why don't airlines have a contingency plan to transform delays during spring and winter break (when families are forced to spend long periods of time waiting in airports) into unexpected experiences? Imagine families' reactions when they experience airline employees giving activities and snacks to the kids? Imagine the number of people who would recommend the company based on this low-on-cash but high-on-the-empathy-meter commitment?

What about changing the service-desk approach in these emergencies? Get rid of the queue that angry and disgruntled customers have to stand in. Supply roaming agents with laptops and have them help. Make it simple and easy; don't make customers beg to get rebooked.

Proactively reach out to customers. Contact customers actively and have executives be a part of this process. They need to listen to the customer to inspire the right next steps.

Quickly--and I mean very quickly--give customers an apology gesture. This can vary anywhere from a free ticket to a list of options that your frontline can offer during these times; once again, don't make customers beg for this.

* Know which customer segments have been affected by the situation. If your best customers are affected, then you can bet they're waiting to hear from you. They'll want to know what extra steps are being taken to make sure they remain your customers. Although this is a seemingly simple action, most companies don't think to segment and reach out to customers by segment. Make everyone 'whole'--but use this information to gauge how much additional outreach should be done to retain your loyal and profitable customers, the most important asset of your business.

* Communicate frequently, actively and passionately. Find an active way in the media to communicate directly to customers about what is happening, where they can get help, and what is being done to fix the situation.

* Aggressively make the changes necessary to ensure that this doesn't happen again. Think Tylenol. In 1982, Johnson & Johnson experienced a crisis when it was discovered that numerous bottles of its Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules had been laced with cyanide. The company recalled more than 31 million bottles at at cost of over $100 million. Johnson & Johnson's response was immediate, impassioned, active, extensive and appropriate.

Make the Sincere Apology Part of Your Company DNA

At Southwest Airlines, Fred Taylor Jr. has the formal title of senior manager of proactive customer communications. His informal title? Chief forgiveness officer. Taylor spends his 12-hour workdays finding out how Southwest disappointed its customers. He then fires off homespun letters of apology and "touches" to ease the situation. Bully for Southwest for doing this because, well, it's the right thing to do.

But don't jump on the apology bandwagon if you can't do it right. Start with sincerely caring, communicate what happened, explain how you will help customers--and do it swiftly. Begin by engaging the right group of people to create a contingency plan so things just click into place when the inevitable occurs.

Remember when you were a kid and your brother or sister punched you or pinched you? Sure they apologized, but it probably didn't mean much because a) your parent was usually prompting the words, and b) you'd been apologized to many times before just to be punched again another day. This is what we put our customers through when we deliver a hollow apology and then don't fix the problem. You'll likely get credit when you apologize once for a problem; but when it repeats, another letter for the same problem just won't cut it.

When apologizing to your customers, you must take it seriously. Don't put your customers through the emotional roller-coaster of having a bad experience and then a hollow apology. The measure of your company is determined in these moments. And your customers are definitely keeping score.

Jeanne Bliss spent 25 years leading the customer experience for Lands' End, Coldwell Banker, Allstate, Mazda and Microsoft. She runs CustomerBLISS; and is the author of Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action.