The other other day my grocery store sent out a receipt for a purchase months ago.

Then later on they sent out this email.

Yesterday, our email receipt system sent out receipts from past purchases you made in January and February. If you got one, please rest assured: You were NOT charged and none of your personal data was compromised.

The good news? If you’re a Neighbor Rewards customer, we gave you points for those purchases! There’s always a silver lining, right?

Oh, technology. We apologize for any confusion we’ve caused, and we appreciate your understanding and patience while we’ve worked through resolving this issue.

It does quite a few things well:

• it explained what happened.
• it addressed any potential negative impacts (e.g. double charges, data breaches).
• it used a touch of humor at the expense of technology, who is always a good scapegoat.
• finally, it gave a benefit in the form of membership points which are used on later purchases.

You can’t prevent every problem but this example shows that you can still give good customer service and keep on your customers good side.

Happy customers are customers who will come back and buy again.

Getting customers coming back is one of the best ways to build a sustainable business.

Repeat Customer Insights can help you understand your customer’s behavior. With its collection of behavior reports, you can see what they’re actually doing instead of throwing darts at the wall.

Eric Davis