When 99.9 Percent Isn’t Good Enough in Customer Experience

Last evening, I planned dinner at an upmarket resto-bar. After browsing options, I settled on one and noticed a 30% discount offer on the food delivery app. Seemed like a great deal, so I booked the table through the app.

The evening went well. It had good food and great ambience.

But things took a turn when it was time to pay.

What Was the Catch?

To avail the discount, I had to pay through the Zomato app.

I tried using my Visa card, but it failed.

Switched to Mastercard, it also failed.

Tried Amex, and it was the same.

I went down the list: Net banking and UPI payments. Every single option failed.

I reached out to the food delivery app’s customer support via chat. To their credit, a representative quickly called me and walked me through a few steps:

• Log out and log back in
• Check if the app is updated
• Restart the phone, and try again.

I did everything. Nothing worked.

When I contacted them again, I was told to make the payment through regular means and send the bill as proof. They assured me the discount amount would be credited to my account for future dining use.

Sure, I got the money back. But by then, the moment was ruined.

What started as a great evening ended with frustration. And despite the prompt support, I’m now wary of relying on the app for bookings and payments in the future.

What Happens in That 0.1% Gap?

We often hear brands tout their success in metrics: 99.9% uptime, 98% CSAT, 24/7 customer support.

But what happens in that 0.1% gap?

Sometimes, it only takes one such moment for a customer to mentally check out, even if everything else went perfectly.

Take my recent experience: a great meal, a seamless booking process, and an exciting discount.

All undone in the final mile: payment failure. There was not just one glitch; every payment method failed.

Despite well-meaning customer support and eventual resolution, the friction left a lasting dent. I got the discount, but lost a bit of trust.

So the question is:

How do we prevent even the rarest of CX failures?

Is a 0.1% failure rate acceptable when it risks 100% customer dissatisfaction?

Five Ways to Rethink Rare Issues as Real Business Risks

1. Shift from Resolution to Prevention

Most companies pride themselves on how fast they resolve issues.

Can we flip this narrative and see what if we focused more on why those issues happened in the first place?

Let us assume you have a leak in your ceiling; you can patch it up every time it rains. However, wouldn’t it make more sense to check the roof?

Every escalation is a clue.

That one-off payment glitch? It might be hiding a flaw in a recent app update, a failed API handshake, or a poorly documented user edge case.

Instead of just solving the symptom, investigate it like it’s the tip of a systemic iceberg.

You should build for the edge cases. Don’t just fix, fortify.

2. Run Last-Mile Experience Audits

A customer journey is only as strong as its final step.

Whether it’s scanning a QR code, receiving an OTP, or clicking “Pay Now,” these are high-anxiety, high-impact touchpoints.

When they fail, even 0.1% of the time, it leaves a mark.

It’s like running a marathon perfectly and tripping at the finish line. The pain isn’t just in the fall, it’s in the lost effort.

That’s how customers feel when the app crashes at checkout, or a payment fails after a great experience.

Proactively test those last-mile scenarios.

How about simulating real-world pressure?

Poor signal strength, low battery, app version mismatches, and the like. Because that’s what real customers deal with.

3. Build Confidence, Not Just Compensation

A refund may fix the wallet, but not always the trust.

After a CX failure, customers don’t just want their money back; they want reassurance that it won’t happen again.

Think of airlines. If a flight is delayed and they offer you a food voucher, that’s nice, but what really matters is whether you’ll make your connecting flight.

In digital experiences, closing the loop is crucial.

Tell the customer what went wrong, what you’re doing about it, and how future experiences will be better.

Transparency builds loyalty more than apologies do.

4. Track Repeat Failure Types, Not Just Volume

Rare issues often don’t show up in your dashboards because they don’t trigger volume alerts.

Does that mean those rare issues don’t matter?

It matters deeply. 

Instead of only tracking how many people faced a problem, start looking for patterns in the kinds of issues that occur.

For example, if three out of 10,000 customers report payment failure with Amex cards after an app update, it’s not noise.

It’s a signal.

You wouldn’t ignore three smoke alarms just because the rest of the house is quiet. Spot these micro-patterns. They often point to larger blind spots in your experience flow.

5. Empower Support Teams to Handle Edge Cases, Not Just Escalate Them

Too often, front-line agents are trained to follow a script.

But when rare or complex issues pop up, the script runs out, and the customer falls into a frustrating loop of transfers and templated responses.

What if support teams were empowered with intelligent fallback tools?

In my case, the support team did all they could. But could they have offered a seamless fallback option?

Imagine if the app could auto-switch to a backup payment system, or authorize the discount upfront?

It is very similar to how good baristas know what to do when the espresso machine breaks; your support staff should be able to improvise without needing six layers of approvals.

Would I be wrong to say that CX is not judged by how well you serve the 99.9%, but rather by how well you handle the edge cases?

You have to especially look at those moments that don’t fit the script.

As a customer, you won’t look at a one-off glitch as just bad luck. It is a brand experience for you, and one experience is all it takes to tip the scale.