Because we have the money.

Furthermore, studies show it can cost up to nine times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an old one, reports the Deseret News

With that in mind, businesses are turning to people like Kristen DeTienne, an expert in the art and science of customer recovery.

“She says making customers happy once there’s been a service failure requires two components, psychological and tangible.

The psychological component, she said, focuses on whether the company is empathetic toward the customer and genuinely sorry. The tangible response refers to how the business makes it up to the customer, whether through a discount or a free product or service.

She gives the example of a student of hers who paid for flowers to be delivered to his mom on Mother’s Day. By accident, the flowers were not delivered. When the student called, the florist profusely apologized for the oversight — the psychological response — and then offered the tangible response of delivering a different bouquet of flowers to the mother’s house every day for a week.

“I can say I’m really sorry, but sometimes, if you’ve been really inconvenienced, that’s not enough to regain your loyalty,” DeTienne said.

“We found that both components work together to regain customer loyalty. . . You can’t have one without the other and expect to be successful.”

Paraphrased and quoted from a Deseret News article by Greg Katz, read the rest here. (Thanks to Octavia!)

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