Failure Is Guaranteed—Here’s What To Do About It

LeadershipLeadership StrategiesFailure Is Guaranteed—Here’s What To Do About ItByShep Hyken,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, author & keynote speaker.Follow AuthorMay 31, 2026, 08:00am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Every business must prepare for failure.gettyYour company will fail customers. Every company does. Nobody and no company is perfect. As optimistic as I am, I’m also a realist. While perfection is a worthy goal, it is impossible to nail every customer interaction every time. I’ve written about this before, but the outlook of guaranteed failure will give us a fresh approach and creates a different conversation. Just last year, I wrote about the goal of zero complaints, and quoted NFL football coach Vince Lombardi, who said, “Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.”I also mentioned Bill Price, president of Driva Solutions, who was Amazon’s first vice president of global customer service. When Jeff Bezos interviewed him for the job, he was asked, “What’s your definition of customer service?” Price responded, “The best service is no service,” meaning that Amazon should be so good that nobody would ever have to call customer support in the first place. That answer was one of the reasons Price landed the job. But, both Bezos and Price recognized that never having a failure was unrealistic thinking.So, when it comes to customer experience and product quality, while we may strive for perfection, we will occasionally fail, and that is where a huge opportunity is waiting for us. This is where we get to fix whatever is broken. When a customer calls with a complaint of any kind, this is where we step up and not only fix the problem, but also “fix the customer,”...