Be Different or be dead

July 7, 2014

Why ‘serving’ customers is way better than ‘servicing’ them

Source: Pexels

Why ‘serving’ customers is way better than ‘servicing’ them.

What promise do you have in your service strategy?

“I promise to service you.” or “I promise to serve you.”

Which sounds more appealing? Which sounds more sensitive to your wants, desires and expectations?

Do you really want to be ‘serviced’?

Customer service in most organizations involves the application of the company’s service structure to people. It subjects them to the rules, policies and practices the company has created to control the customer engagement process.

It boils down to a set of policies being applied to everyone regardless of circumstance.

How often have you heard: (even though we all know it’s ridiculous) ’I’m sorry you can’t do that because it’s company policy.’

And yes, control.

Policies for the most part are intended to minimize risk (for the company), increase efficiency (for the company), maintain or reduce operating costs (for the company) and create consistency (for the company).

What’s missing?

Service is all about the company yet it implies that it is all for the customer. Nonsense!

If you REALLY want the customer to come first, you need to subordinate the company to a serving role. And you need to start talking about ‘serving customers’ not providing customer ‘service’

What it means to serve:

▪️ The customer is engaged to determine what the company’s rules, policies and procedures look like;

▪️ Employees try to find a way to say yes to every customer request whether it satisfies a policy or not;

▪️ Frontline conversations with customers always include the question “How can I help you?”;

▪️ The measure of the customer engagement is whether or not they were dazzled by the service experience they had, not how proficiently the rules were applied.

Do you service or do you serve?

Should you be trying to improve your customer service, or should you be trying to serve customers in a more warm and caring manner?

What do you think is the winning approach?

Cheers,
Roy
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• Posted 7.7.14 at 03:01 am by Roy Osing
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