Losing your possessions is a stressful experience.
Losing your possessions at a property that doesn’t use lost and found software increases stress to overwhelming.
Can anything be worse than this?
Think about it for a moment; what would be your scariest possession to lose?
We would venture to say that losing your wallet, which contains much of your personal information, would be the most common and most terrifying possession to lose.
A wallet is a small thing, yet contains the most personal – and vulnerable – details of your life.
These are standard items you would find in any wallet, and you might have more.
Lose your wallet and your anxiety skyrockets!
First, merely the act of losing something is stressful.
Second, you have lost a possession that contains vital information about your life.
It is a double whammy when you lose your wallet.
Can you imagine the despair your customers feel knowing they lost their wallets?
Imagine how they feel, not knowing they will get it back?
Not to mention the stress of thinking about their credit cards and debit cards getting into the wrong hands, which crosses their minds hundreds of times.
It is a never-ending trauma that does not end until the wallet is found.
Put yourself in their shoes.
You are probably going to be checking your credit or debit card accounts frequently to see if they have been depleted.
Whether you have ever lost your wallet or not, we know you can appreciate the gravity of this.
We understand you cannot prevent dishonest customers from hijacking credit card accounts.
However, you can help your staff mitigate this situation.
Keep reading; we are going to share a clear customer service policy to give your customers an extra hand with their lost wallet woes.
A few experts we know have shared a brilliant policy with us.
It improves the mood of their customers after losing their wallets.
We think it can help yours as well.
Imagine you are attending a marquee event in your town.
Fifty thousand customers are also at this event, so there is a lot of crowd movement.
Customers are close to one another, walking into each other and bumping into one another over several hours.
Once the event ends, you get into your car with your family.
You pull up to the parking garage pay station and try to locate your wallet.
You have lost your wallet!
Luckily your spouse had theirs, but your credit and debit cards are now vulnerable.
Now, what?
You park your car and start your trek to the customer services desk.
You finally find one.
Before we move on, how would you feel about now? Sweaty palms? Heart racing?
It is not a pleasant experience.
The customer services manager greets you.
They acknowledge that they were able to find your wallet early in the event – hours ago – but could not reach you.
However, they managed to contact each debit and credit card company for you to inform them your card had been lost during the event!
Now your accounts have been noted for safety.
How’s that for spectacular?
Not only did this property execute a form of proactive operations, but you also received your valuable possessions back with peace of mind.
You are probably wondering, how did the property pull this off?
It is that simple.
When your property creates a customer service policy that requires staff to contact credit and debit card companies when customers lose theirs, you apply a simple procedure for making a significant impact on the customer experience.
They achieve peace of mind; they tell all their friends and family about their experience with your property, and they come back again and again for more events.
OK, you already have the policy down that improves customer service.
Can you take this system to the next level, though?
Can you improve upon this plan?
Yes, you can. You can make it better.
Implement lost & found software based on proactive operations to maximize the customer satisfaction impact of this policy.
Standing alone, your ‘credit card customer service policy’ is remarkable.
But you need to be able to track its use and effectiveness.
You must be able to see that your policy is being executed – and more.
Lost and found software is your answer.
These are web-based systems, which means that anyone on your team can access the system to enter information about a lost item, such as a wallet.
So, we know this happens often, your security team finds a wallet and brings it to your customer services department.
They probably throw it on a table and get back to their post.
Does this already sound familiar?
Ten minutes pass.
Then, another ten minutes pass…
Wait, who found the wallet?
Or, was it this wallet?
Do you see the problem here?
Not having the ability to capture vital information efficiently is where your operational downfall begins.
It is a snowball effect too.
You can change your lost item woes.
Having and using a system not only creates accountability but also helps you to enforce it.
Efficiently capture information associated with the lost wallet:
One aspect of these solutions that takes your proactive operation to a new level is the very fact that your security team would not have to go to the customer services department.
They can log the item into the system, detailing that the wallet is in the security office.
If the wallet contains credit and debit cards – they can carry out your credit policy!
How is that for proactive operations?
When your customer comes to claim the found wallet at customer services, your team will populate the found item in the system based on the description given by the customer.
Customer services will see that the item is in the security office, contact your security team, and provide them with the found item number.
A security officer will match the lost item number to the lost item with the matching printed tag on the item.
Bingo! Found it.
You already know that customer service doesn’t end there.
Your security officer returns the lost wallet with a smile on their face.
“We took the liberty of contacting your credit card companies to inform them you lost your wallet. They noted your accounts.”
Use lost & found software coupled with your customer service policies to maximize customer service like this.
Get more lost items back to your customers and do it in a way that blows their minds.
Yes, we like this, “Mind-Blowing Customer Service.”
It has a nice ring to it.
What do you think?
Use a progressive lost and found software solution to take customer satisfaction to new heights.
It’s the small steps you take that have the greatest impact on customer service. One of the significant aspects of proactive operations is delivering first-class customer service.
Supplementing your credit card customer service policy with lost & found software is what we would call executing proactive operations.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.