It isn’t good enough to merely satisfy customers.

To reach Escape Velocity organisations must strive towards developing loyal customers who deliver repeat business and are “promoters” of the business. Telling their family and friends how great your business is at BBQs and other gatherings.

Loyal Employees who are enabled with the capabilities they need, deliver value to Customers and Service Excellent should be their goal. Their loyalty and pride in the organisation they work for can be contagious. Systems, processes and procedures must enable Service Excellence and the Business Culture must encourage it. Service Excellence builds and maintains positive relationships with customers, which in turn leads to customer loyalty, retention, and improved profitability. Studies suggest that depending on the industry you are in, acquiring a new customer can cost 5 to 25 times more than retaining an old one. (Harvard Business Review).

Customer loyalty is a measure of a customer’s willingness to continue doing business with a company and recommend its products or services to others. Building customer loyalty requires a customer-centric approach that focuses on meeting the needs and expectations of customers through every interaction or what Jan Carlzon, President of Scandinavian Airlines refers to as Moments of Truth in his book of the same name. Understanding where every single “Moment of Truth” occurs in an organisation seeking to deliver service excellence, is incredibly important for every manager in that organisation. Businesses can use various strategies to build customer loyalty, such as delivering Service Excellence, providing personalized experiences and loyalty programs that reward customers for their loyalty, but we would caution about wasting money on costly reward schemes, discounts or giveaways which often only have only short term impacts and hurt your bottom line.

Achieving Service Excellence.

Whilst many of the things that contribute to delivering Service Excellence are common sense and simple in concept, they can be challenging to implement, particularly in larger organisations.

• Customer Service is part of Everyone’s Job: Every single person in an organisation is responsible for good customer service, not just the Customer Service Department. Even people who don’t deal directly with external customers on a day-to-day basis have internal customers and are ultimately responsible for supporting those who do deal with external customers. In other words, Customer Service should be embedded in your business culture.
• Empower Your Employees: They are the face of your business, and they play a critical role in delivering Service Excellence. They can’t do that if they have to seek approval for every little decision they need to make to resolve a customer issue. Trust them by empowering them to make reasonable customer-facing decisions.
• Personalise Interactions (Moments of Truth). Wherever possible personalise Moments of Truth through the use of technology. Do this on the phone, online, via written communications and face-to-face. Make customers feel that they are valued and important to you – because they are.
• Don’t make your Customers Jump through Hoops: Ensure your business is easy to deal with. This is particularly challenging for large organisations with multiple business divisions. When a customer says “they really have great products, but they are an absolute pain to deal with” then you know there is something wrong with your business culture and service model.
• Take Ownership: Although similar to the above point it is about every single employee knowing that when a customer raises an issue, they continue to own that issue until they have passed it onto a colleague and a metaphorical “hand-shake” has occurred, transferring the issue. Customers cannot be expected to know the internal structure of your organisation. They can be guided to log service or sales requests via specific phone numbers etc but making it hard for them just because they slipped up isn’t Service Excellence.
• Your Word is Your Honour – Keep your commitments. If you can’t for any reason, contact your customer and tell them why. They will usually understand, but they will never understand why you failed to keep your promise.
• Set appropriate Customer Expectations. If you don’t customers will invariably set their own, which you may never be able to satisfy. For example, if it takes 2 days for product delivery, tell your customers that, don’t let them assume it is much shorter and disappoint them.
• Always Treat and Address Customers with Respect. Even in Australia where we are generally much more casual in the way we speak to people than in other countries. Use appropriate titles when talking to them for the first time and until they tell you it’s OK to use their first name. Foul and offensive language should never be used when talking to customers.
• Ask For and Respond to Feedback. Regularly seek feedback from Customers and act decisively on that feedback. Various types of customer surveys can be used including Net Promotor Score (NPS) surveys, which we highly recommend. NPS results should be reviewed by senior management at least monthly and complaints picked up during NPS surveys acted upon immediately.
• Don’t Confuse “Services” with “Customer Service.” Services are in effect “soft products”. That is they are non-physical things that are designed to be sold. Whereas a hard product like a car or a computer hardware system is physically tangible and the customer can see, feel and touch it (even smell it if they want to). On the other hand, Services are generally sold on trust because they can’t be seen or touched etc. In that sense they are intangible, they will nonetheless deliver tangible benefits (value) to a customer. Every customer should receive Excellent Customer Service for FREE irrespective of whether they are buying a Service (soft product) or a physical Product. Giving away or discounting “Services” is like giving away “Products” a recipe for financial disaster.

Effective customer management also involves leveraging customer data and analytics to gain insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and needs. Companies can use this information to tailor their products and services to meet the specific needs and preferences of their customers, further strengthening the customer relationship.