The Cow That Taught Me About Customer Service

When you are doing business in America, inevitably, you will at times come across customer service issues.
What is your policy on customer service?  Is it a policy that is well thought out and executed in a systematic formula?  Are all of your employees trained and up to speed on it?
Today I want to show you an example of how a cow taught me about incredible customer satidsafaction.  Yes, this is a metaphore, not a real cow.  Join me and see what I mean.

Customer Satisfaction is rule # 1 when doing business in America.  Its commonly spoken that give good service and your customer will tell one person.  Give bad service and your customer will tell ten people.
Would you rather have one positive referral or ten bad ones?
Perhaps American's are spoiled in that we expect complete and immediate satisfaction in all of our business dealings.  Take my advice, be sure to make every effort to provide far beyond what you consider to be great service in all of your transactions with an American customer.  Your rewards will be great.
This past weekend, I was reminded just how important customer service is in American business and it was a simple and rather small example.
THE COW IN THE SERVICE
You see, I was out getting breakfast for my wife and I at a local fast food restaurant called Chick-fil-A.  Chick-fil-A is all about chicken products, yet their marketing message is always centered around cows instructing American's to "Eat More Chicken" (basically so we won't kill the cows for beef products).
Chick-fil-A is a rising star in chain restaurant's in the US, similar to McDonalds (but more healthy on average) has an incredible customer service philosophy (not only is it policy, but it is clearly trained and ingrained in every employees head).  its simple, if the customer is inconvenienced in any way, give them some type of compensation (or a "comp" as we call it).

In my case this past weekend, I waited about 5 minutes (that's right 5 minutes) for my food to be ready.  Chick-fil-A saw this as an inconvenience to me and gave me a coupon for a free chicken strips.  I wasn't upset, I didn't complain, but it did feel a little bit longer than usual.  Chick-fil-A responded proactively in this case by giving me the coupons. 
A few things occurred to me on this transaction.  First, it wasn't the only time that this location has compensated me.  They seem to go almost too far to completely eliminate customer service complaints (and I am not upset by that policy).  How they did it each time including this one was interesting. 

• They compensate you not by saying it will be free or reduce the price.  No...  They give you an incentive to come back, which is the coupon.  If I come back, I'm surely not going to use just the coupon.  I'll end up purchaing even more of their food. 
   
• In addition, they give me coupons for meals at other times of day.  So if my issue comes up at breakfast like it did this weekend, I received a lunch or dinner coupon.  One other time, I was delayed at lunch and they gave me a coupon for a breakfast item.  Why just have someone who only comes to to Chick-fil-A at breakfast?  Lets get them for every meal.

Chick-fil-A used a customer service related issue to improve my loyalty to their business and eliminate the chances of me telling anyone else about the bad experience.  think about it.  I was so impressed, I wrote an entire blog on it.  I'm sure most people will at least take the coupons back and redeem them.
THE BOTTOM LINE
How can your business adapt some of the fundamental principals of customer service outlined here to make an impact as you do business in America?