An incident does not necessarily have to end in a bad customer experience. The difference often lies in how a company communicates, responds, and acts when something does not go as planned.
Some customer experience mistakes are much easier to understand when we put theory aside and look at what happens in real situations. In my case, two end-of-school-year activities involving my daughter made this particularly clear: a trip to Mallorca and a graduation party.
They were very different situations, but they had something in common. In both cases, there was an initial problem followed by poor handling that added more uncertainty, effort, and frustration. And that is precisely where the most valuable lesson lies for any service company.
When a Service Problem Turns into a Bad Customer Experience
Something going wrong does not automatically result in a bad customer experience. Mistakes happen. There may be a delay, information may be misunderstood, a supplier may fail, or circumstances may force a change of plans.
What makes the difference, to a large extent, is what happens next.
When customers identify a problem, they need to understand what has happened, find someone who can help them, and know what solution is available. If instead they encounter unclear information, unresponsive customer service channels, or have to find an alternative themselves, the incident starts to escalate.
Problems also accumulate. Unclear information may be manageable. Having to make a phone call to clarify it may be manageable too. But if you call repeatedly and nobody answers, you have to solve the problem yourself, and you end up paying an additional cost, your perception of the service changes.
That is exactly what happened in the first of these experiences.
Case 1: When a Customer Service Channel Exists but Nobody Answers
My daughter and her friends had booked an end-of-school trip to Mallorca. The purchasing experience was highly digital, and making payments through the website was straightforward. Up to that point, everything worked as expected.
The problem arose with the dates.
They had been told that the trip would begin, let's say, on June 16 and last five nights. We did our calculations and assumed they would be back on June 21, so they bought the corresponding train tickets.
However, the return journey was by ferry, and they would actually arrive in Valencia on June 22.
Could we have misunderstood the information? Yes. I have no problem admitting that. But that is precisely one of the reasons customer service exists: to ask questions, confirm information, or find a solution when an issue arises.
The train tickets could not be changed, so they had to buy new ones, which were more expensive because the date was approaching. Faced with this situation, I tried to contact the customer service number listed on the organisers' website.
I called more times than I can remember.
The process was always similar. After waiting and listening to a message saying that an agent would answer when one became available, the system eventually informed me that no agents were available and ended the call.
I never managed to speak to anyone.
And this is where we find one of the easiest customer experience mistakes to identify: the company had created the expectation that a customer service channel was available, but when we actually needed to use it, that channel provided no response.
The result was not simply the cost of two new train tickets. It also meant uncertainty, time spent trying to get in touch, and the feeling that once the purchase had been completed, there was nobody on the other side willing or able to deal with a problem.
If a Customer Service Channel Cannot Be Managed, There Must Be Alternatives
A customer service channel that exists but cannot resolve anything can generate more frustration than trust. Providing a customer service phone number implies something fairly basic: customers should have a reasonable chance of receiving assistance.
That does not mean every company needs a large call centre or has to respond immediately at all hours. A small business can have limited resources and still provide good customer service. What matters is how those limitations are managed.
If no agents are available at a particular time, the company could record the customer's number and return the call. It could clearly communicate its opening hours, provide an email address or chat channel that is actively monitored, or establish a realistic response time.
What is difficult to justify from a customer experience perspective is maintaining a channel that repeatedly leads to a dead end.
It is worth asking a very simple question: if a customer uses any of the service channels we publish today, is there actually someone behind them who can respond?
If the answer is no, the problem is not the number of channels available. It is the company's actual ability to manage them.
Unclear Information Is Also Part of the Customer Experience
Customer communication is not an administrative task separate from the experience. It is part of the experience itself.
In the case of the trip, the problem started before I tried to contact customer service. The information provided about the duration of the trip led us to interpret the return date differently from the actual arrival date.
This is not about deciding who was right. From a CX perspective, there is a much more useful question to ask: could the information have been communicated in a way that avoided the confusion?
When selling a service, particularly one involving schedules, travel, or multiple suppliers, customers should not have to reconstruct important information through calculations or assumptions. Departure dates, approximate arrival dates and times, terms and conditions, what is included, and anything else that could influence other decisions should be clear.
A lack of clarity also has an operational impact. A question that could have been prevented through better communication becomes a customer service enquiry. And if customer service is also unable to respond, a small communication problem can turn into a much more negative experience.
Improving customer communication therefore does more than make life easier for customers. It can also reduce avoidable incidents.
Case 2: What Happens When What Was Promised Does Not Match the Service Delivered
The second experience involved a graduation party.
My daughter and her classmates had purchased a service that included bus transport from their school graduation ceremony to a large party and, later, transportation back to the school. For the parents, knowing that transport had been arranged provided considerable peace of mind.
The package also included other elements: a welcome drink, exclusive access for their school, a candy bar, a couple of drinks, and late-night food, among other services.
The problem began before they even arrived.
While they were getting ready for one of the most anticipated parties of the school year, a message arrived in the WhatsApp group they shared with the organiser: there was no bus. According to the explanation, it had been impossible to find one.
Parents and students therefore had to organise their own transport, using private cars and Uber, to reach the party.
Once there, more differences emerged between what had been expected and what was actually delivered. There was no welcome drink, the supposed exclusivity disappeared because students from other schools were also attending, there was no candy bar, and the late-night food was insufficient for the number of guests.
But there was still the return journey to deal with.
The party ended an hour earlier than planned, and once again there was no bus to take them back. It was approximately 5:30 in the morning, and they were at a venue where finding transport was not particularly easy. My daughter and her friends had to find an Uber themselves and stay in contact with the driver until they managed to locate each other.
At this point, we are no longer talking about a single incident. We are looking at a series of differences between what customers expected to receive and what they actually received.
When those expectations have been created by the company itself, every unfulfilled promise further damages trust.
What Is and Is Not Included Must Be Clearly Defined
The more specific a commercial promise is, the more important it becomes for operations to be able to deliver it.
If return transport is included, customers should be able to rely on that transport. If exclusivity or specific services during an event are promised, those conditions form part of the expectations customers have paid for.
Of course, a company may discover that it cannot provide something it originally promised. But that is when another part of the customer experience begins: communicating the change with sufficient notice, explaining what has happened, and providing an appropriate alternative.
In our case, the following day a document arrived via WhatsApp attributing the bus problem to the municipality where the party was held and announcing a €10 refund for the missing service. There was no explanation of how that amount had been calculated.
The stated refund period passed, but the money did not arrive. My daughter had paid for the party herself and, understandably, wanted her money back. Eventually, we reported the situation to the Guardia Civil. We never found out what happened afterwards or whether other people did the same.
Regardless of who caused the problem with the buses, from the customer's perspective the service had been purchased from a specific company. Shifting responsibility elsewhere does not remove the company's need to take ownership of the situation and explain what solution it will provide.
A Poorly Managed Incident Can Have More Impact Than the Initial Failure
Good incident management should reduce customer effort, not increase it.
The two cases differ in severity, but they share the same pattern: something does not meet expectations, and the customer needs the company to step in.
In the first case, we needed an explanation and could not speak to anyone. In the second, customers themselves had to find alternatives for services that were part of what they had purchased, and the subsequent response failed to restore trust.
Acknowledging the problem is the first step. The company then needs to explain what happened as clearly as possible, state what it is going to do, and follow through on what it communicates. Technically resolving an incident is important, but it is not always enough to rebuild trust.
There is another lesson from the first case that remains relevant. Just because your customers are young and accustomed to interacting with companies digitally does not mean only the digital part of the experience needs to work.
You can have an excellent website, a simple purchasing process, and a flawless payment experience. All of that forms part of the customer experience. But the real test often comes when something falls outside the expected journey.
If buying is extremely easy but getting help when a problem occurs is almost impossible, the previous digital experience cannot compensate for the lack of customer support.
How to Identify Whether Your Company Is Making the Same Customer Experience Mistakes
These cases are specific, but the same patterns appear across many companies and industries. To identify them, it is worth examining what customers actually have to do when things do not go according to plan.
Customer Service Channels
Do not simply check whether your phone number, email address, or contact form exists. Test what happens when customers actually use them.
If nobody can respond, calls end without an alternative, or messages remain unanswered for days, customers are experiencing a very different reality from the one the company believes it is providing.
Customer Information
If you repeatedly receive questions about the same dates, conditions, prices, inclusions, or exclusions, you may not only have a customer service problem. You may have an earlier communication problem.
Clearer information can prevent unnecessary customer effort while also reducing avoidable enquiries for the company.
Commercial Promises
Compare what is promised during the sales process with what operations can consistently deliver.
Marketing can create an excellent expectation, but if the actual service cannot sustain that promise, it will eventually work against the customer experience.
Incident Management
Look closely at what happens when something goes wrong.
If customers have to call several times, repeat the same story, chase a response, find alternatives themselves, or work out who is responsible for solving the problem, the organisation is transferring effort to the customer that it should be taking on itself.
Many customer experience mistakes do not begin with an extraordinary failure. They begin with small points of friction that nobody corrects: information that could be clearer, a phone that goes unanswered, a promise that never reaches operations, or an incident for which nobody seems willing to take responsibility.
Before thinking about complex solutions, it is therefore worth reviewing something much more basic: what happens in your company when a customer genuinely needs help?
That moment will probably tell you more about the customer experience you are delivering than any journey in which everything works perfectly.
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