A Mistake Put Right Can Leave a Client Trusting You More

Imagine an event planner named Corinne Ashby who plans Helena Whitfield’s 60th birthday dinner for 40 guests at home. Two days before the party, Corinne sends the caterer the guest count. In a hurry, she copies it from an older list, which says 32. On the night, the caterer counts the plates at seven and finds that the food is eight dinners short.

Corinne tells Mrs. Whitfield at once and apologizes. Then she asks the caterer to stretch the food. Every guest eats, but the portions are small, and two cousins go without the lamb. Corinne’s bill goes out in full.

In March, Corinne plans Mr. Whitfield’s retirement lunch. The place cards come from the same old list, and his brother has no seat. Corinne apologizes again, and a chair is found. In May, a friend asks Mrs. Whitfield about Corinne. “She’s lovely, and she always says sorry,” Mrs. Whitfield says. “Check her lists, though.” The friend books another planner.

Suppose instead that Corinne makes the same mistake and apologizes the same way. Then she calls the Italian restaurant around the corner. Eight dinners arrive in 50 minutes, and Corinne pays the $560 herself. She tells Mrs. Whitfield that the extra dinners are on her own bill.

The next morning, Corinne changes how she works. Every count and every name now comes from one final list. She reads it to the caterer by phone two days before. At the retirement lunch in March, every guest has a seat and a card. In May, a friend asks Mrs. Whitfield about Corinne. “At my sixtieth, the caterer was eight dinners short,” Mrs. Whitfield says. “Corinne had them on the table inside an hour, on her own bill, and nothing’s gone wrong since.” The friend books Corinne that week.

Corinne made the same mistake both times, and she apologized both times. What Mrs. Whitfield remembered was what came after the apology. In the first version, the guests paid for the mistake with small plates. Then a second mistake came from the same list, and Mrs. Whitfield learned that she had to check Corinne’s work. In the second version, Corinne paid for the fix, and the mistake never came back. The night of the missing dinners became the story Mrs. Whitfield told about her.

So when a mistake is yours, put it right fast and at your own cost. Then change what caused it. Here is why one problem put right can raise a client’s trust. Then you will see how a caterer and a designer did it, and where it goes wrong.

One problem put right can raise a client’s trust, and a second one can undo it

In 2002, James Maxham and Richard Netemeyer published a study in the Journal of Marketing. For 20 months, they followed customers who had complained to a firm. In that time, each customer had two problems, and the firm tried to put each one right. The researchers asked the customers how satisfied they were with the firm. They also asked whether the customers would recommend it and buy from it again.

After one problem that was put right well, the customers’ ratings could rise. Researchers call that rise the recovery paradox. After a second problem, a good fix no longer raised the ratings. A fix also did less when the two problems were alike, or when they came close together.

Those were customers of a firm, and the step to your clients is the course’s own. Here is the step. A problem is one of the few times your interest and the client’s point different ways. Until then, the client has seen you only when the work went well. A fix that costs you time or money shows them what you do under pressure. That is why the first problem can leave a client trusting you more.

The second problem changes what the first one meant. A client can put one mistake down to a bad day. Two from the same cause start to look like the way you work. That is the course’s reading of the study. Corinne’s second slip came three months after the first, from the same old list. Problems that were alike and close together were where the study found a fix did the least.

A Denver caterer ran short of popcorn, and the client wrote that she thought more of the firm

Anthony Lambatos owns Footers Catering in Denver, Colorado. In 2015, he wrote for Catersource about the firm’s mistakes and what came of them. His most recent, he wrote, was “a silly mistake.” A client ordered five flavors of popcorn for a happy hour with over 500 guests. The firm did not send enough. The team got more popcorn to the event quickly. The firm also took part of the menu price off the final bill “for the inconvenience.”

The client then emailed the firm’s coordinator. “Every business can look good when things are going well,” she wrote, “but faced with a ‘crisis’ not every business is able to maintain their professed standard of excellence.” She had always been impressed with Footers, she wrote, “and even more so now that there was a hiccup of sorts.”

She also said what she was grateful for. It was “a solution with as little back and forth as possible.” The situation, she wrote, “would have been far more uncomfortable had Footers been hard to get in touch with or unconcerned with the shortage in supplies.” She was so impressed that she sent the firm her resume, in case a job came up.

Her email thanks the firm for a fix with little back and forth, and for being easy to reach. It does not mention the money off the bill. Measured against this lesson, the fix is what she remembered, and the money came with it, not in place of it. So put your effort into the fix first.

An Augusta designer paid to fix a sofa she ordered wrong, and the client kept hiring her

In 2020, Business of Home asked designers how they apologize to clients when a project goes wrong. Lauren Robbins, a designer in Augusta, Georgia, told a story from when she first started her business. She ordered a custom sectional sofa for a client. When it arrived, she saw that she had switched the long side and the short side. It did not fit the room.

“I was embarrassed and feared this mistake would cost me my client,” she said. Instead, she “quickly admitted to my mistake, took ownership and righted the wrong.” The installation, she said, “might have taken longer than initially planned and cost me more out of pocket.”

The client was “appreciative of my honesty,” Robbins said. “Not only have we worked together on multiple projects since, but she has referred me to other clients.”

Robbins feared that the mistake would cost her the client. What the client kept instead was what came after it. Robbins admitted it quickly, fixed it, and carried the cost herself. In her words, the mistake let her “true colors” show.

Why talking a client into living with a mistake goes wrong

Imagine a florist named Delphine Marsh who does the flowers for Ava Ferris’s wedding. The bride chose white peonies for her bouquet. On the morning of the wedding, Delphine opens the box from her grower and finds blush pink. She ordered the wrong color herself, in a week with four weddings. The flower market is 40 minutes away, and she is due at another wedding by two.

Delphine shows Ms. Ferris the bouquet and apologizes for the mix-up. Then she tells her that blush is popular this season and will look softer in the photos. Ms. Ferris says, “It’s fine. It’s lovely.” She carries the pink bouquet down the aisle. In the autumn, her sister gets engaged. “Delphine’s flowers are pretty,” Ms. Ferris tells her. “She’ll tell you the wrong ones are better, though.” Her sister books a different florist.

Delphine apologized, and the bouquet was pretty. Her mistake was the fix she chose. She chose the one that cost her nothing, and she asked the bride to accept the mistake instead. On her wedding morning, Ms. Ferris watched her florist decide that a drive to the market mattered more than her bouquet.

The version that works costs Delphine her morning. She tells Ms. Ferris that the peonies are the wrong color and that the right bouquet will be there by noon. She sends her assistant ahead to set up the next wedding. Then she drives to the flower market, buys white peonies, and makes the bouquet again. In the autumn, Ms. Ferris tells her sister, “Delphine got the color wrong, and she drove off and made my bouquet again before noon.” The sister books Delphine.

Paying for your own mistake is not throwing money away

Many professionals worry about the cost of fixing a mistake. A fix at your own expense can take the profit out of a job, and the mistake already feels bad enough.

Robbins had a bigger fear, that the mistake would cost her the client. The fix cost her more out of pocket. Even so, the same client has worked with her on multiple projects since and sent her other clients. Corinne’s $560 bought the story Mrs. Whitfield told her friend. The cheaper fix saves money on one job. What it can cost is the next job, and the friend who would have heard about this one.

How to put a mistake right so the client trusts you more

1. When a mistake of yours reaches a client, choose the fix that is best for them. Do not choose the one that is cheapest for you. For example, a tutor who set a student the wrong chapter before a test can add a free session that week.
2. Put it right as fast as you can, with as little back and forth as you can. Lambatos’s client thanked his firm for exactly that. If you give the client a time for the fix, keep it. The client is still asking whether you will do what you said. For example, a specialist realtor whose listing went online with the wrong price can have it corrected within the hour. Then he can text the seller that it is done.
3. When the mistake is yours, pay for the fix, and do not ask the client to share the cost. For example, a dog walker who loses a client’s house key can pay a locksmith to change the locks that same day.
4. Before your next visit to that client, find what caused the mistake. Change how you work so it cannot happen the same way again. Write the change on the page you keep on the client. A second mistake from the same cause is where the study found a fix did the least. For example, a home organizer who threw out a box the client wanted to keep can make a new rule. Nothing leaves the house until the client has seen the list of what is going.
5. On the next job for that client, check the part that went wrong last time before anything else. That job is the client’s first chance to see the change. For example, a photographer who delivered a family’s gallery two weeks late can deliver the next one a day early.

Next: You will see how to say sorry for a mistake once, and then let the fix do the rest.