057: Why Customer Service Changed Forever!

Digital accountability has revolutionized customer service—and it's the best thing that ever happened.
With everyone carrying a camera and a megaphone in their pocket, businesses can no longer hide behind poor service. Yelp scores, online reviews, and viral moments now reveal the true character of an organization.

This radical transparency brings us to what customer experience expert John DeJulius calls the “Service Recovery Paradox”—the counterintuitive truth that customers whose problems are brilliantly resolved often become more loyal than those who never had a problem at all. The formula is deceptively simple: respond quickly, own the issue without deflection, and overcorrect with generosity that surprises and delights.

Take the story of a customer whose suit jacket was ruined by hair color at John’s salon. Rather than argue over responsibility or offer the bare minimum, John immediately sent a check covering the entire suit—and added a complimentary massage as an apology. The result? Not only did the customer continue her patronage, she referred 18 new clients over the next year. All from a $275 investment no traditional marketing could match. As John puts it:
 “What advertising could I spend $275 on and get 18 new customers?”

His philosophy extends to the “If it gets to me, it’s free” policy, where his personal cell phone number is prominently displayed in every salon. This creates accountability among managers (since escalated complaints impact their bonuses) and shows supreme confidence to customers. Surprisingly, adding his number didn’t increase calls—it increased email feedback, as customers recognized his genuine commitment to service excellence.

So, are you treating complaints as costly nuisances—or as million-dollar opportunities to create brand evangelists?
Remember John’s advice to skeptical employees:
“Be naive, not paranoid.”
Trust your customers by default, and watch your business transform through the power of exceptional service recovery.

Chapters

• 0:00 Digital Impact on Customer Service
• 4:21 The Service Recovery Paradox
• 8:34 If It Gets to Me, It's Free
• 11:54 The Suit Jacket Story
• 16:04 Be Naive, Not Paranoid

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

How has it affected customer service? It's the greatest thing ever Because, like you said, if you came in in the 90s and we disappointed you, treated you like crap, threw you out, were rude, how many people can you tell? But today you have a megaphone and you video record me telling you get the hell out of here if you don't like it and being rude. That could go viral. It's the best thing that ever happened, because now shit companies can't hide. You know and what people say about you online, you know the average is going to be true.

Speaker 2: 0:39

You touched a bit ago, talking about the 90s, and you know if I had that bad experience and I have this toxic eight, and how do you feel that the digital world we live in today, right, there's so much, and I'm looking for my phone at the moment and here it is. You know, instantaneously, know instantaneously, I can express myself and my experience with your salon, right, which I couldn't do in the nineties, right, how does that impact the customer experience? And knowing that, hey, if they walk out of here, they can either praise me or they can slay me. And you know what do you do to deal with that, Especially if it's a negative experience. You know, it's one thing if somebody just doesn't come back, or maybe they tell their friends not to go there, but, man, instantly the world knows about it.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Yeah, you know, to me and I'm not talking about the digital devices and social media I'm pinning yeah, there's a lot of drawbacks with it, um, but if we keep it in just the lane, you asked what? How has it affected customer service? It's the greatest thing ever because, like you said, if you came in in the nineties and we, you know, disappointed you treated you like crap, threw you out, were rude how many people can you tell? And you know, and back then, right, right, you know, you tell your neighbors, you tell your friends, you'd eventually forget about it until someone, maybe once in a while, say, hey, I'm thinking to, oh, no, no, that's really bad. Right, but today you have a megaphone, yeah, and you could, you know, especially, and you also have a, not only a megaphone, but you have a uh, uh, you know the, a camera, you know the, the uh, what, the, the uh tv guys that used to carry around the big cameras. Sure, everyone is walking around with that big news camera and if you video record me telling you get the hell out of here if you don't like it, you know, and you know being rude, that could go viral. So it was. It's the best thing that ever happened, because now, shit, companies can't hide, right, your Yelp scores scores not one off, but your yelp scores are going to be, you know, true, if you know, if you have 50 um, you know and, and what people say about you online, you know the, the average is going to be true um and you can't hide. And great companies will be exposed as well, which puts us on, like you know, on stage constantly, because if you're calling and talking to a customer service rep, you could be recording, it be being recorded, just like you know, and we work with law enforcement, but I do believe you know them video recording every.

Speaker 1: 3:53

You know, engagement with a civilian is a great thing and I think it's good for them, because now there's not the he said, she said he called me, this, he, you know, was physical with me. Now there's proof and that there's proof. There is, hopefully, you know, checks and balances and also consideration of all right, maybe I'm not going to be as aggressive or whatever that may be, or the civilian can't lie and say he or she was. So I think it's great. I think it's great, you know, I love it.

Speaker 1: 4:24

And this goes back to the zero risk. There's a service recovery, so so when you drop the ball and I don't care if, if you're, if you're posting or you're not posting, if you call up and say I didn't like your presentation, I didn't like your haircut, whatever business model is, we're going to correct, we're gonna over correct, and that's where most businesses fail. Um, you know what do you mean? Well, you know. And then they make you justify it and then you know don't punish 98 of your customers for what you're afraid two percent are going to get away with or try to get away with. I'm okay with getting taken advantage of 2% of the time I don't think I do. Okay, but what? 98% can't believe how well we took care of it. You just call me up and you say, john, I was really disappointed in you know, here's what we're going to do for you.

Speaker 1: 5:19

So so the three rules of, of correcting, uh, uh, when someone's upset, address it immediately. Okay, take blame and overcorrect.

Speaker 2: 5:33

So dress up immediately, take blame, so take ownership of it, yep, and then overcorrect.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Yeah, instead of saying, well, you know you should have, and why did you wait a week and all that stuff. Now you know there's going to be people listening and saying, well, you know, we got some people that do this. You know, every week they, they buy this can and they drink three quarters of it and they say it was no good and they want a new one. Okay, that's the one percenters and you could you could, you know, have a a thing for them. But if I've been coming to you and I never complain and today I'm like, hey, this is flat, don't you know see how much I drank, just say, oh, here's another one. You know, I mean, handle it.

Speaker 1: 6:18

There's a service recovery paradox. That's very true. It's probably happened to you in your life, on both sides of the fence, definitely as a consumer. The service recovery paradox is if you go to do business with someone and you have these expectations and they hit them, they don't blow you away. But you know, you come in and you make reservations for Tuesday night at seven o'clock and you walk in and they have you down at seven o'clock and you go, sit down and you have a nice meal and you leave. Okay, it's a nice thing. You may. You may go back, you may not, right, if you want that type of food.

Speaker 1: 6:50

Whatever the service recovery paradox is, if you go in and you come in and you're like, hi, I'm here for my 7 o'clock reservation and they're like, oh, we don't have you. You're like what I called two days ago no, I'm sorry, hold on, let me see what we can do. And they run around and the place is packed and you're talking to your wife. You is packed and you're talking to your wife. You're like all right, what else is open right now? Where can we get in on a Friday night at seven o'clock? And they come back and say we're so sorry, we did find you a table. It can be in the bar, is that okay? It's a little louder, you know, that's fine, as long as you get it and they take care of the dinner, right? Or they do something for you.

Speaker 1: 7:34

That's called the service recovery paradox, where you came in expecting this and they bombed. But they made it right, they overcorrected. Now you might be more loyal to them than had nothing gone wrong. So you're like, wow, I trust them. Like they didn't say you know, are you sure? You sure you have the right night, you know. You know they didn't look to see if you have resident. They didn't blame you, they just said we are so sorry and for your inconvenience. We've comped a bottle of wine or we've comped this, or we're going to give you dessert or whatever. And the manager came out he apologized for the inconvenience or the miscommunication. Right, you're more impressed with them than so, like I, actually like when we screw up, it's a sick day. So I'll give you a really classic example of this.

Speaker 1: 8:24

25 years ago, when I was involved in the salons, um, I had a rule and still the rule if it gets to me, it's free, okay, okay, and. And it's still the rule. If it gets to me, it's free, okay, Okay. And, and it's not hard to get to me, my cell number is all over the salon and the notes yeah, yeah. And the note says uh, love to know about your experience. If we crushed it, please let me know, so we can celebrate it. If we miss the mark, please let me know, so we can celebrate it. If we missed the mark, please let me know, so we can make it right. And then my email and myself and so, so, uh, very few people call me and, and when they do, I'm glad they did. But people don't take advantage of it. They're not calling me at midnight. They're not, you know, but but when they do, I'm glad they did are they calling you for the crushing it?

Speaker 2: 9:13

are they usually calling you with an issue? At what level? They are Okay.

Speaker 1: 9:17

More are, and 99.9% email me. Here's my personal email Okay, but if you need to call me, and so let me tell you something. Really, it's really cool psychologically about this. So I started this and just put my email no cell. And I got emails okay, I don't know, maybe five a month, and four out of the five were hey. I really want to tell you um, how I I I went to your salon for the first time and this sandy and she was couldn't have been nicer and oh my god, and what I did. And in four out of five. So I got four greats and one was yeah, it could have been better. So it gave me the opportunity to fix it. Let the next experience be on me. Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 10:02

For some reason, I wanted people. I didn't feel I was getting enough feedback, so I wanted people to know I was serious. So the only thing I changed was I added my cell number. You will get me A couple people just called just to see if it was really my cell. I will tell you.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Here's the thing that happened I went from getting five emails a month to probably 15. No doubt, by putting my phone number, I didn't get more calls. I mean, I got a few calls here and there, but it just said man, if this guy's willing to put his personal cell number, he really wants to know and I'm going to tell him. And I just got more emails. Okay so, but my thing was to my staff was if it gets to me, it's free, because no one wants to call the owner, the general manager, the vice president up. You don't want to do that. Let's say, you had a bad experience last night in a restaurant and you're really upset. You don't want to call that restaurant today and if you do, you're mad. And on top of that, if you're that mad, you know, and now you get the general manager on the phone, you almost have to embellish it because you're getting them on the phone. You're like, yeah, oh, my God, you wouldn't believe it. So so I? So I told my employees that whoever calls me, I'm not going to argue with them. Whatever they want, they get. If it gets to me, it's free, and whatever they get is going to come out of your quarterly bonus, the manager. So my whole point was handle it at the salon level, because when it gets escalated, people get really angry. When they have to tell their story, two, three times. They start remember, oh, you know what. This happened to me last year. This isn't the first time and they're telling other people and I don't want that to happen. So here's my story.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Someone called me 25 years ago and said Mr DeJulius, they, I got my hair colored at your salon, at your Solon salon, and they got color on my suit it's a woman suit jacket, which is horrible because we're supposed to make you take off your, your, your clothes and put a robe on for that reason. So we already screwed up. I'm like, oh God. And so I said can we get it? Can we take it to the dry cleaner, happy to pay for that? She goes. No, she goes. I already tried, can't get it out, she goes and the suit is worthless without the jacket and they no longer sell the suit. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:39

So I say, well, well, you know, can I send you a check for the suit? And she couldn't believe that. She's like well, it's 270. This is in the 90s. She was it's like 275. I said, can I send you a check? And she was like you don't want to know how now, you don't want to know how old it is. I said, no, she goes, you don't want to see it. Oh, she couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1: 12:59

Hum up, looked up her, her, her thing for her uh address to send her a 275 check and I sent her a half hour massage for inconvenience. Now there's a little marketing on that end. Okay, now what? What we do and we probably still do this is whenever we had a, a wanted to give you know, a, a, a like a, an apology. If we had a new massage therapist, a new nail technician, we'd always give you, as part of the recovery, uh a thing. Here's a manicure with Amanda. Amanda has no clients, so it kind of does us a favor too. A it impresses you that we gave it, but we're also getting Amanda instead of her sitting around all day doing nothing to do.

Speaker 1: 13:50

She's doing these apology gifts, but she turned a lot of them into clients. It's a win-win. We must have had a new massage therapist at the time, because I sent her a $275 check and a half hour massage for her inconvenience. I looked up her history and she's been coming in. She's been a client for three years. She comes in six to seven times a year. Good client, never referred anybody. So send her off this. And about a year later I was curious if we retained her and I looked her up and in the following 12 months she came in seven more times. I was like, yes, right, you know we retained her. Then I clicked on her referrals and she referred 18 new customers for $275. What advertising or market could I spend $275 and get 18 new customers?

Speaker 1: 14:52

So I tell my staff get color in everyone's clothes. But that's the point. Own it, address it immediately. Own it and over, correct? Yeah, instead of getting into a pissing match, uh, uh, you should have taken off your jacket or? Uh, you know you don't like your haircut. Well, it's been two weeks. You know why didn't you? If you didn't like your haircut, why didn't you come in the next day? I don't give a shit. You know, give a free haircut. Now, if this is the third time he does this, yeah right, but you have a bigger issue there.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Something, yeah, for sure, zero risk, that's what, that's what being zero risk is all right, awesome, I that's.

Speaker 2: 15:35

I'm going to uh think about that one a little bit, a little bit more in future interactions. That's for sure right, because yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 1: 15:44

So, john a lot of times like, like I have an employee, I have a lot of employees that they'll, because where they they previously worked, they were programmed not to trust the customer and they're protecting the business, right, sure, yeah, and I can't blame them, because they are thinking the business is getting taken advantage of them. So it's really a hard habit to break. I say no, lindsay, it's okay, like I'm okay, trust them. I want you to be naive, not paranoid. Okay, you know, and so you know, lindsay, this is the first time. You know.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Mark's been coming here for two years. He orders books from us every time he hires new employees. If he says this time that you know he ordered 30 and he only got 20, send him another 20. Don't send him the 10, send him 20, right, mark doesn't have a pattern. He's been a good customer for years and this is for I. Send him 20. Don't send him the 10, because 10 would make it right. Send him the 20 because I want his mind to be blown right. It's an opportunity to be a hero to him. Actually, don't send him. Drive those books over if he's in Northeast Ohio. But that's the thing, versus no, john, I have a receipt here that says it was a case of books. That case of books is 30. It's okay, linz, even if you know I'm sure he's not doing it on purpose. Maybe they got lost, maybe UPS lost the debt, but he has history with us. He's never tried to take advantage of us. Be naive, hi.

Speaker 2: 17:24

I'm Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Current Tech Solutions and Cyber Guardians. We know business owners like you want to focus on growing your company, not worrying about IT problems or security threats. That's where we come in. Our team uses AI to protect your business from cyber risks and keep everything running smoothly. If you're ready for peace of mind and a stronger future, reach out to us today. Let's secure and elevate your business together. Outro Music.