Last year I injured myself doing CrossFit. Like so many others I had started cross-fitting and I loved it! The only problem was that I had lifted too much and too quickly without listening to my body. After some minor injuries, that I ignored, I injured some discs in my back and I finally realised that I wasn’t going back any time soon. So I made the tough decision to cancel my membership.

However, the CrossFit gym didn’t stop sending me newsletter emails and updates (which I thought was quite annoying). It finally became too much for me and I replied to one of the emails. In the header I wrote “unsubscribe, please”. I figured, that would be that, and didn’t give it much thought.

But some days later I received an email from the gym. Like many others, I receive a lot of automated emails in my inbox, so getting one which wasn’t, naturally caught my interest. The header said “Unsubscribe and a little more”. It was a personal note from the gym manager, Ed, who had started at the gym after I had left.

Getting more than you expect really matters

Ed wrote to me that he had been told that I used to be quite an active member once and that he had also learned about my injury. He offered me a free session, where he would try to understand my injuries and help me get better. At this point I had been seeing so many different types of doctors and specialists, all arguing different cases and courses of treatment for my injury, and all unsuccessful.

So, I figured that I had nothing to lose and took him up on his offer. Realising that he was probably doing this to get me back as a member, he still was able to exceed expectations by offering me something and not expecting anything in return. If you’ve tried it, you will probably agree that it’s actually quite moving when someone outside your own family or circle of friends takes an interest in your well-being.

Anyway, I went to meet with Ed, and we had a good session. He gave me some pointers to what I should and shouldn’t be doing and worked with me to sort out what was the underlying reasons for my injury.

That day, I had planned to pick up my training shoes, my jump rope and some other training gear from the gym, but when leaving I changed my mind. Suddenly, I was thinking that I might as well leave the gear, since I would need it once I was completely over my back injury and joined the gym again!

As an extra follow up with me, Ed sent me personalised video that same day, summing up the points we had gone over, so I could always revisit the points he had made. Talk about making the effort to exceed expectations in the customer experience!

How is your customer experience?

So why write this post? Well, we should all remember that even when you are losing your customer, it’s never too late to win them back. But, automated emails aren’t always going to do the job. Sometimes it takes some personal effort to exceed expectations in the customer experience.

Do you want to learn more about managing the customer experience or how to engage more with visiting customers? Then read on here and here. Stay tuned!