Be Different or be dead

May 26, 2014

How customer service can improve to be the best and unbeatable

Source: Pexels

How customer service can improve to be the best and unbeatable.

Organizations today are challenged to create the kind of experiences that result in customer loyalty.

In the face of empowered and knowledgeable customers, fickle customers (who will leave you in a heartbeat for better treatment) and hyper-competition (the rate of new business formation has increased like never before) there is a struggle to get the right formula to both attract new customers and keep the ones you’ve got.

What’s the answer?

There are two components involved in providing loyalty-engendering customer service.

Core service

The first component, core service, represents the basic foundation of your business.

It is your basic product or service without which you simply don’t have a business. In the telecom world core service could be defined as a stream of wireless data. In finance it could be investment advice. And in software development it could be a smartphone operating system.

Your customers expect your core service to work according to specifications. They expect uninterrupted wireless data service; they expect the financial plan to deliver the benefits promised and they expect working internet service 100% of the time.

As a result when you provide working core service customers rate you ‘ok’ and no more. However, when your core service is not working as promised you get an ‘F’ on your report card; they leave you and they don’t go quietly, they tell everyone how bad your organization is at serving customers!

Bottom line: your core service has to work all of the time as promised.

But don’t expect loyal customers when you do.

Loyalty comes from the second component of serving customers - the service experience.

Service experience

Whereas core service is what you get from an organization, the service experience is how you feel when you get it. Or it’s is the way you are treated by the organization when you do business with them.

If the service experience you provide is memorable; if it takes their breath away; if it blows people away; if it WOW’s them; if it dazzles them, you get a ‘A’ on your service report card.

And you are rewarded with customers telling others how great you are; they stay with you at least until you deliver a de-dazzling event which puts everything in jeopardy.

So, how to create customer loyalty?

Provide core service in a satisfactory manner all the time - consistency is key here.

Once you have risen to this challenge you have earned the right to move on to loyalty building by providing dazzling service experiences every time a customer touches you.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 5.26.14 at 05:38 am by Roy Osing
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May 5, 2014

For the best customer experience, who should set the rules?

Source: Unsplash

Some organizations talk about providing customer service but what they really mean is enforcing their rules that define how customers are “allowed” to do business with them.

How they buy a product. How they get information on products. How they pay. How they register a complaint.

Customer service isn’t about controlling people. Nor forcing them to do things they don’t want to do.

It’s about serving them.

Who typically influences the rules that control customer engagement? Internal Auditors. Systems Analysts. Process Engineers. Efficiency Experts. All focused on “the inside”.

Something’s missing.

It’s about time the real “C-Suite” be invited to help design the customer engagement process and the rules that should govern it.

Do you regularly review your rules, policies and procedures with your customers?

Do you allow them to help determine what they should look like?

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 5.5.14 at 03:58 am by Roy Osing
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