Getting Started On Journey To Delivering Perfect Service

I was recently asked about how a company should first embark on a path to premier customer service. My response was similar to one of my previous posts. After a blogging hiatus, I am going to resurrect the "Perfect Service" column, and hope to contribute to the excellent push by many of my Customer Experience colleagues.

Here is how one should get started:

My advice for companies looking to begin the journey toward premier service differentiation is to think boldly. Companies that dominate some niche of an industry should not be a secret. The marketplace needs to know what company is the best at customer service.

As important, is that your company's employees needs something to rally around that is clear, aspirational, and material.

So clear thought must be given to a statement that will rise above all others. One statement I have designed is the "Unconditional Satisfaction Guarantee." We have called this the "Perfect Guarantee." This guarantee boldly states that if you are unsatisfied with any aspect of our service for any reason, you do not have to pay until you are.

While there may be other statements you can make, such as the free service trial or the offer to pay for conversion to your product, the Perfect Guarantee is a bold statement of confidence that your service will please.

In his book, "Extraordinary Guarantees," Christopher Hart writes about a small building company that undertakes the strongest guarantee in its industry.

He writes: "The guarantee program did far more than attract customers. Since the inception of the program, the company has streamlined its operations, slashing costs and improving service....by offering to provide even slightly inconvenienced customers with compensation of significant value, the company was risking its own bottom line to make a statement about its commitment to satisfying the customer."

This company took a bold step by offering the guarantee in the first place. It is a statement to current and prospective customers that if you are looking for a firm that cares about service, here is one that is serious. Of course, the key is then to deliver on that promise.

But it is also a statement to the organization that you are serious about customer service. And that failure to satisfy now comes with a pricetag!

My View

When companies look for service partners with whom to do business, they want the partner to have some skin in the game. The guarantee does just that.....it puts the two companies in business together.

But it is more than just a marketing ploy or financial gamble. The Perfect Guarantee statement is transformative.

Companies are now forced to understand what is important to their customer, and then get it right. No longer can companies hide behind legal agreements about levels of quality or average speed of answer in call centers. They must understand each client's buttons, and then deliver.

The analogy that can be used here is the simple garden hose. To find where the leaks are in a garden hose, all you have to do is cap the end of the hose and turn on the water. Before long, any leaks along the way will be obvious. The Perfect Guarantee serves as the cap, and any problems in service delivery will be exposed and be painful.

So the first thing I recommend companies do when embarking on this trek is to boldly put a stake in the ground, or cap on the hose, and that will force the organization to act. The rest is plumbing.