My last post discussed two personal incidents that pointed out service lessons:
--don't just strive to be better than the competition; strive for perfection;
--service your customers always, not just when they threaten to leave.
The second "lesson" triggered some additional thinking about what seems to be a growing model of customer service, one that I will formally label "The Appeal Practice." This is the intentional business design to maximize the financial outcomes of the firm through excessive fees and reduced service, while enabling a "white gloves" team to do whatever possible to satisfy complaining customers.
In a recent Harvard Business Review blog, Peter Bregman (CEO of Bregman Partners, a global management consulting firm) discusses his recent poor service experience with his exclusive NYC health club. http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2009/10/the-price-of-a-poor-experience.html The lack of service to this member was clearly unacceptable. But what caught my eye was what happened next:
"A few weeks after I was refused entry into my gym, I canceled my membership. The way my situation had been handled put the gym, in my mind, in a category of cheaper gyms. The fees I was paying were no longer worth it to me. Once I canceled my membership, I received tremendous customer service — apologizing, putting me in touch with the general manager, offering to freeze my membership for another month without charge so I could think about it — but it was too late. I was already gone."
The health club business model (and Poland Springs in my earlier example) was betting that it could charge high fees, minimize service, and then recover enough to retain its business. In Peter Bregman's case, they lost. In my Poland Springs case, they may still have me as a customer, but likely it won't be for long.
My View
The "Appeal Practice" service model is as follows:
--Promise financial deals, exclusive image, and exemplary service to entice potential customers to purchase your product/service;
--After initial deal expires, deliver veneer of promised features/service while maximizing financials from client base through extra fees and streamlined service offerings;
--Most customers, once committed to the service/purchase, will not take the time to challenge, and the company will achieve short-term finacial success;
--For those customers who do challenge, provide extraordinary service and financial deals to retain them.
This practice is common, and growing. It is not, however, how companies that want to compete on delivering premier service should be designed. There is a lack of respect and trust between customer and company that makes this fail.
I commented on Peter Bregman's blog as follows:
---------------------
Peter--
I recently experienced (and wrote about) an interesting phenomenon that I believe is becoming common practice. I call this "The Appeal Practice." http://deliveringperfectservice.blogspot.com/2010/03/yesterday-i-had-two-experiences-that.html
"The Appeal Practice" is based on the model that a company can push outrageous financial practices (ie, raising fees, charging penalties, a la carte selling of basics, etc.) or deliver unresponsive services (automated services, denial of health insurance or prescription coverage, etc.)to maximize short-term financial outcomes.
Many customers will just go along with the offering, figuring the switching costs or time wasted in challenging is not worth the effort. These companies depend on those the passivity of customers for their practice to work.
However, to limit any potential negative impact, "The Appeal Practice" companies design elaborate safety nets to catch any customer who DOES have issue, or who wishes to terminate the relationship. As in the case of your Health Club, when you expressed a desire to leave, suddenly the service red carpet is being rolled out, including fees waived and new permissions granted.
This practice, which is increasingly being used by Credit Card companies and banks (for annual fees and late payment penalties), health insurance companies (for initially denying claims), hotels loyalty programs(for designating elite status), is spreading.
The result? The "passive" consumer is being served poorly and paying more for that service than the "complaining" customer.
The "Appeal Practice" maximizes short-term financial outcomes, yet clearly erodes any loyalty a customer may have for the company he or she deals with.
------------------------------
Companies that deploy these types of service models are not interested in competing based on service, but rather are more interesting in the perpetuating a fraudulent relationship with their customers for as long as they can get away with it.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Lessons In Service: Strive For Perfection, Don't Screw Your Customers
Yesterday, I had two experiences that triggered some thoughts about what companies have in mind when they act.
--------------------------------
First--
Watching television with my wife and a commercial appears for "Simply Orange" orange juice. The advertisement was clearly emphasizing the freshness and goodness of the product, features of a typical "product focused" sale. What caught my eye was the "Orange Back Guarantee."
According to the product's website:
What do you get back? A free bag of the competition.....ORANGES!
I have been focusing a lot recently on guarantees, and how they make a market statement as well as focus an organization to deliver. So what does this guarantee do for the product? Well, it clearly caught our attention, more for being unique than anything else. Second, without tasting the product, my mind assumes it is a premium offering....why else would they guarantee such a thing. Third, it was not a true comparative offer, such as "we are guaranteed better than the other brands," yet it tried to position itself that way by comparing its taste to the ultimate competitor...the orange itself...against "the perfect competitor!"
My View:
The commercial worked for us. If you asked consumers to describe the "perfect orange juice," they would likely say that it should taste like freshly squeezed oranges. So Simply Orange guarantees its product is the "perfect orange juice," not that it tastes better than its competitors. I like that.
When trying to differentiate based on a premium offering, companies should look ahead toward perfection rather than simply staying ahead of competitors. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the Health Insurance industry, with its low service reputation, lacks a breakout service competitor...in their minds, it is okay to just beat competitors; they feel they don't have to strive for perfection.
Wrong.
------------------------
Second--
Poland Springs delivers bottled water to our house. Each month, we get a bill in the mail for about $40, which I am usually diligent in paying. A year ago, I noticed that a "Fuel Surcharge" had been added to the bill for about $2.50. I didn't pay too much attention to that since the cost of fuel had been going up dramatically. But I did notice that when the price of fuel went down, the surcharge remained. Well, unfortunately, last month I was two days late in paying my now $42.50 bill, and I see an additional $15 late payment fee. Now my bill is $57.50.
I was furious. So I called Poland Springs to cancel my delivery service. Between a Fuel Surcharge and now Financial Penalties, getting water to our home was getting expensive and complicated. Not worth it....
The Call Center representative transferred my call to a trained specialist who obviously handled all discontinuances. Noting my long tenure with with Delivery Service, she immediately offered to waive the Financial Penalty. As well, when I queried about the Fuel Surcharge, she said she couldn't remove the surcharge, but would discount my water 50% this month which would be the equivalent of about 9 months of fuel surcharge. So my bill goes from $57.50 to about $25.
Mission accomplished. I stayed. But I am not happy.
My View
There is an ugly business practice out there that I refer to as "The Appeal Process":
---Squeeze and underserve your customers and hope customers don't notice;
---Focus on recovery for those customers who do notice.
Like many companies, Poland Springs has set up a game of pushing the revenue envelope as far as it can (adding fees and penalties) to supplement its commodity product offering. For some companies, the money made on penalties, interest, and other charges can rival that of the product or service itself. (One has to question at this point what business these companies are in...is Poland Springs a bottled water company or a financial company?)
But Poland Springs understands that it can only push the envelope so far, and it tries to catch fall out during a recovery process. In the time of a 5 minute phone call and without my asking, the discontinuance specialist waived the penalty and discounted my water 50%. I am staying with the service, but am now wary of the company.
A company that wants to distinguish itself in service must not put its customers in such a predicament. By offering deals only to those who complain, or who know how to play the game, a company is creating a trust gap. I am not going to feel good about a service provider if I have to read and understand all of the small print just to not be taken advantage. Examples abound:
Health Care Insurers--deny coverage or prescription at first, but will accept if appeals are made. Model hopes insured people will not appeal.
Banks/Credit Companies--charge fees for everything but are willing to drop them if challenged or if accounts are threatened to be closed.
Everything Travel--the guy next to me on a vacation flight has paid half for his seat and hotel room because he knew how to work the process.
The true premier service provider would not have forced me to go through the humiliating process of threatening to stop my service before offering me the discount. If I was truly valued for my tenure, the discount or penalty waiving should have been automatic. Now that would have been impressive. I would have felt special rather than cheap.
Good Lessons here!
--------------------------------
First--
Watching television with my wife and a commercial appears for "Simply Orange" orange juice. The advertisement was clearly emphasizing the freshness and goodness of the product, features of a typical "product focused" sale. What caught my eye was the "Orange Back Guarantee."
According to the product's website:
"If, after tasting, you don’t agree that Simply Orange orange juice tastes as fres
h as biting into a juicy orange, you may make a claim under the Orange Back Guarantee.....On a 3”x 5” card, state why you think Simply Orange orange juice does not taste as fresh as biting into a juicy orange in 50 characters or less.."
h as biting into a juicy orange, you may make a claim under the Orange Back Guarantee.....On a 3”x 5” card, state why you think Simply Orange orange juice does not taste as fresh as biting into a juicy orange in 50 characters or less.."What do you get back? A free bag of the competition.....ORANGES!
I have been focusing a lot recently on guarantees, and how they make a market statement as well as focus an organization to deliver. So what does this guarantee do for the product? Well, it clearly caught our attention, more for being unique than anything else. Second, without tasting the product, my mind assumes it is a premium offering....why else would they guarantee such a thing. Third, it was not a true comparative offer, such as "we are guaranteed better than the other brands," yet it tried to position itself that way by comparing its taste to the ultimate competitor...the orange itself...against "the perfect competitor!"
My View:
The commercial worked for us. If you asked consumers to describe the "perfect orange juice," they would likely say that it should taste like freshly squeezed oranges. So Simply Orange guarantees its product is the "perfect orange juice," not that it tastes better than its competitors. I like that.
When trying to differentiate based on a premium offering, companies should look ahead toward perfection rather than simply staying ahead of competitors. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the Health Insurance industry, with its low service reputation, lacks a breakout service competitor...in their minds, it is okay to just beat competitors; they feel they don't have to strive for perfection.
Wrong.
------------------------
Second--
Poland Springs delivers bottled water to our house. Each month, we get a bill in the mail for about $40, which I am usually diligent in paying. A year ago, I noticed that a "Fuel Surcharge" had been added to the bill for about $2.50. I didn't pay too much attention to that since the cost of fuel had been going up dramatically. But I did notice that when the price of fuel went down, the surcharge remained. Well, unfortunately, last month I was two days late in paying my now $42.50 bill, and I see an additional $15 late payment fee. Now my bill is $57.50.
I was furious. So I called Poland Springs to cancel my delivery service. Between a Fuel Surcharge and now Financial Penalties, getting water to our home was getting expensive and complicated. Not worth it....
The Call Center representative transferred my call to a trained specialist who obviously handled all discontinuances. Noting my long tenure with with Delivery Service, she immediately offered to waive the Financial Penalty. As well, when I queried about the Fuel Surcharge, she said she couldn't remove the surcharge, but would discount my water 50% this month which would be the equivalent of about 9 months of fuel surcharge. So my bill goes from $57.50 to about $25.
Mission accomplished. I stayed. But I am not happy.
My View
There is an ugly business practice out there that I refer to as "The Appeal Process":
---Squeeze and underserve your customers and hope customers don't notice;
---Focus on recovery for those customers who do notice.
Like many companies, Poland Springs has set up a game of pushing the revenue envelope as far as it can (adding fees and penalties) to supplement its commodity product offering. For some companies, the money made on penalties, interest, and other charges can rival that of the product or service itself. (One has to question at this point what business these companies are in...is Poland Springs a bottled water company or a financial company?)
But Poland Springs understands that it can only push the envelope so far, and it tries to catch fall out during a recovery process. In the time of a 5 minute phone call and without my asking, the discontinuance specialist waived the penalty and discounted my water 50%. I am staying with the service, but am now wary of the company.
A company that wants to distinguish itself in service must not put its customers in such a predicament. By offering deals only to those who complain, or who know how to play the game, a company is creating a trust gap. I am not going to feel good about a service provider if I have to read and understand all of the small print just to not be taken advantage. Examples abound:
Health Care Insurers--deny coverage or prescription at first, but will accept if appeals are made. Model hopes insured people will not appeal.
Banks/Credit Companies--charge fees for everything but are willing to drop them if challenged or if accounts are threatened to be closed.
Everything Travel--the guy next to me on a vacation flight has paid half for his seat and hotel room because he knew how to work the process.
The true premier service provider would not have forced me to go through the humiliating process of threatening to stop my service before offering me the discount. If I was truly valued for my tenure, the discount or penalty waiving should have been automatic. Now that would have been impressive. I would have felt special rather than cheap.
Good Lessons here!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
How Do You Know If You Are Truly Satisfying Your Customers?
How do you tell if you are truly satisfying your customers? It is a very difficult question, one that many companies struggle to answer. In his excellent blog "Buzz Tank" http://www.buzz-tank.com/ John Oswald describes the dilemma:
A lot of the companies that I work with measure their customer experience by measures that wouldn’t really make sense to a customer. Things like First Call Resolution, Right First Time, Cycle Time and so on. Great measures (sometimes) but not terribly meaningful from a customer point of view.
If these common measurements are not the right measurements, then what should we measure?
It could be as simple as what Frederick F. Reichheld suggests in his book "Ultimate Question." Here he believes the answer to one question is a key measure: Would you recommend this company to a friend? The question has interesting implications, but ultimately requires additional queries to find out "Why" or Why Not?" to make the responses actionable.
But is it okay to be directionally correct with your questions? I think that companies that strive to be service leaders must be more precise in their satisfaction measurements. The data that is gathered is not just for "scoreboard" purposes, but also to drive analysis and improvement. Not having good fuel for this entire process is like saying that your car will be okay as long as you put liquid in the gas tank. The better the fuel/data, the better the car/organization will run!
My View
A lot of the companies that I work with measure their customer experience by measures that wouldn’t really make sense to a customer. Things like First Call Resolution, Right First Time, Cycle Time and so on. Great measures (sometimes) but not terribly meaningful from a customer point of view.
If these common measurements are not the right measurements, then what should we measure?
It could be as simple as what Frederick F. Reichheld suggests in his book "Ultimate Question." Here he believes the answer to one question is a key measure: Would you recommend this company to a friend? The question has interesting implications, but ultimately requires additional queries to find out "Why" or Why Not?" to make the responses actionable.
But is it okay to be directionally correct with your questions? I think that companies that strive to be service leaders must be more precise in their satisfaction measurements. The data that is gathered is not just for "scoreboard" purposes, but also to drive analysis and improvement. Not having good fuel for this entire process is like saying that your car will be okay as long as you put liquid in the gas tank. The better the fuel/data, the better the car/organization will run!
My View
I took the time to comment on the Buzz-Tank blog about measurements, and the quest for "Perfect Knowledge." In that response, I state that I believe that by establishing the "Perfect Guarantee," companies are forced to get to the core of what satisifies customers. One technique of doing that is for customers to describe the "Perfect Service Provider." All efforts--measurement and improvement--can be geared toward that goal.
The response is below:
John--
In my own design, called “Perfect Service,” I believe that discovering what is really important to the customer is so critical that it must almost be forced on the company delivering the service.
Therefore, I advocate using a very strong and material guarantee of customer satisfaction as the rallying point for customer and delivery alike. No sense answering the phone quickly if the conversation is not satisfying, even if you have complied with the letter of a service agreement.
Once you have established the “metric” of customer satisfaction, then the company must discover what is meaningful for that client. Another technique I use is to survey potential and current clients and ask them to describe the “perfect” provider. They will use characteristics that are meaningful to them, not production metrics that are meaningful to the service operation.
By setting up measurement systems and continual improvement processes, you are prioritizing based on a customer satisfaction target. Of course, if you don’t get it right, you end up paying on the guarantee.
Good stuff.
Monday, March 29, 2010
"Customer Experience" In All Industries Needs Same Process As Service Companies
When I study lists of companies that claim to want to differentiate competitively based on customer experience, I am heartened to see companies that I wouldn't have associated with "services" beginning to focus on the customer. Retail stores, computer companies, telephone companies, car dealers, are all sounding like pure service organizations these days. Clearly, the "purchase" experience or the "usage" experience, or even the "disposal" experience, are all important when thinking through satisfaction.
"When the customer is centric to the company's design, changes throughout the company happen!"
For example, in the retail world, some of the steps a shopper walks through in a store will add up to a good or bad customer experience. From Bruce Temkin at Forrester Research, http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/walgreens-rolls-out-customer-centric-retailing/ many of these stores are now focusing on each opportunity and redesigning stores to accomodate. Steps include:
Wayfinding: From walking into the store until you find the right area
Browsing: Comparing multiple products within a category
Studying: Evaluating an individual product or products
Getting Help: Finding answers to questions along the way
So some stores are changing shelf heights and widening aisles, limiting variety of each item, providing more information about choices, and training clerks to be more informed. All in the name of improving the customer experience.
My View
The new thinking about "Customer Experience" can be useful when designing an overall premium service offering.
For those companies, such as retail stores, who depend upon sales of tangible goods, premium customer experience will lead to location loyalty and more sales of those goods. When the customer is centric to that company's design, changes throughout the company happen. For that retail store, reduced inventory means less dollars spent on idle merchandise and more focus on developing knowledgeable staff.
Most interestingly will be how these companies gain insight as to how well these changes are satisfying their customers. And then what process is used to continually improve these experiences.
This becomes even more critical when "service" is the good that is sold. Therefore, how the service is offered, delivered, consumed, and evaluated, must be designed in a way that satisfies the customer.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Companies That Service Their Customers Well Are Happy Companies...Like Zappos
Success Magazine has named Zappos CEO its 2009 Achiever of the Year, using the subtitle: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh elevated customer experience to a new level
While this online shoe and accessory retailer has grown extraordinarily over the past five years and recently sold to Amazon, it is Hsieh's comments about delivering customer service that I find refreshing.
"The thing we realized this year that sort of ties everything together is that customer service is about making customers happy, and the culture is about making employees happy. So, really, we're about trying to deliver happiness, whether it's to customers or employees, and we apply that same philosophy to vendors as well."
It is refreshing to hear things like "create fun and a little weirdness" or "deliver wow through customer service." These are a part of Zappos's Core Values. Love that.
At one of my companies, we instituted "Wow Wednesday" when we celebrated the week's service victories...handing out magnets to be displayed on metal shelves like arrowheads on college football helmets--gold if a client recongized you, silver if a colleague recognized you. Every month, the division got together to count magnets and celebrate.
My View
When companies strive to compete by delivering superior service, they must transform their entire organization to embrace it.
You can't just perform customer service, you must be a customer service company.
It is very difficult for executives to accomplish, particularly in larger companies where each division may find itself in different competitive arenas. But it is clear that in order to be the best, the entire company's focus--from management to phone reps, from the technology department to the finance staff--has to be about delivering service.
Critical as well is having the inspirational leader like Hsieh leading the charge. This cannot be a mid-level initiative.
Can Zappos continue to prosper as a premier customer experience provider within a much larger Amazon? Time will tell, but the foundation is there.
While this online shoe and accessory retailer has grown extraordinarily over the past five years and recently sold to Amazon, it is Hsieh's comments about delivering customer service that I find refreshing.
"The thing we realized this year that sort of ties everything together is that customer service is about making customers happy, and the culture is about making employees happy. So, really, we're about trying to deliver happiness, whether it's to customers or employees, and we apply that same philosophy to vendors as well."
It is refreshing to hear things like "create fun and a little weirdness" or "deliver wow through customer service." These are a part of Zappos's Core Values. Love that.
At one of my companies, we instituted "Wow Wednesday" when we celebrated the week's service victories...handing out magnets to be displayed on metal shelves like arrowheads on college football helmets--gold if a client recongized you, silver if a colleague recognized you. Every month, the division got together to count magnets and celebrate.
My View
When companies strive to compete by delivering superior service, they must transform their entire organization to embrace it.
You can't just perform customer service, you must be a customer service company.
It is very difficult for executives to accomplish, particularly in larger companies where each division may find itself in different competitive arenas. But it is clear that in order to be the best, the entire company's focus--from management to phone reps, from the technology department to the finance staff--has to be about delivering service.
Critical as well is having the inspirational leader like Hsieh leading the charge. This cannot be a mid-level initiative.
Can Zappos continue to prosper as a premier customer experience provider within a much larger Amazon? Time will tell, but the foundation is there.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Getting Started: What's The First Thing Your Company Should Do? Guarantee It!
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 which 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.
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 which 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.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
To Deliver The Best Customer Experience, Must Commit To Do Business Differently!
I am still floored by the following statistics from Forrester Research:
As result, it is indeed a crowded noisy competitive marketplace, with organizations all over claiming to have the best service experience in the industry. But as we see from this research, most are claiming it, but are doing nothing other than telling stories, to deliver it.
The following is a copy of the first post for my blog that emphasizes the point:
-----------------------------------
Commit To Delivering "Perfect Service"
This blog is targeted to management within Service Delivery companies who truly want to be able to say "Our company delivers the best service in the industry!" and then deliver on that promise. Sadly, I have found that most companies will say the words--even put it is some sort of company values or vision statement--but then never commit to deliver.
It is not enough to say it; a company must be it.
"Perfect Service" is an approach to managing a Service Delivery company that transforms the focus of the company to totally satisfying the customer. And when a company begins that journey, magical things begin to happen:
--Customers begin to openly communicate with you;
--Satisfaction ratings begin to soar;
--Sales presentations begin to focus on tangible evidence of satisfaction;
--Conversations are less about cost and fees;
--Employee evaluations become simpler;
--And incredibly, costs to operate go down!
Over time, "Perfect Service" will retain and attract more customers--at lower overall cost and at premium fees.
--------------------------------
My View
My boss once challenged me to recommend an approach that did not merely talk about customer service, but transformed the entire company's customer service design into a premier customer experience engine.
My warning was straightforward: "To be viewed as the best, you can't do it the same way as everyone else....it is not a question of simply out-executing our competitors. The nuances will be lost in the conversation. To be the best, you have to do it differently, and be bold in your approach. It is a full body commitment."
Perfect Service was the result. And I am still convinced the principles of Perfect Knowledge, Perfect Improvement, and the Perfect Guarantee, can be the bedrock for other firms embarking on that same journey.
- 80% of executives believe that their company competes on its "customer experience."
- Only 11% have a formal process to assess and improve that experience.
As result, it is indeed a crowded noisy competitive marketplace, with organizations all over claiming to have the best service experience in the industry. But as we see from this research, most are claiming it, but are doing nothing other than telling stories, to deliver it.
The following is a copy of the first post for my blog that emphasizes the point:
-----------------------------------
Commit To Delivering "Perfect Service"
This blog is targeted to management within Service Delivery companies who truly want to be able to say "Our company delivers the best service in the industry!" and then deliver on that promise. Sadly, I have found that most companies will say the words--even put it is some sort of company values or vision statement--but then never commit to deliver.
It is not enough to say it; a company must be it.
"Perfect Service" is an approach to managing a Service Delivery company that transforms the focus of the company to totally satisfying the customer. And when a company begins that journey, magical things begin to happen:
--Customers begin to openly communicate with you;
--Satisfaction ratings begin to soar;
--Sales presentations begin to focus on tangible evidence of satisfaction;
--Conversations are less about cost and fees;
--Employee evaluations become simpler;
--And incredibly, costs to operate go down!
Over time, "Perfect Service" will retain and attract more customers--at lower overall cost and at premium fees.
--------------------------------
My View
My boss once challenged me to recommend an approach that did not merely talk about customer service, but transformed the entire company's customer service design into a premier customer experience engine.
My warning was straightforward: "To be viewed as the best, you can't do it the same way as everyone else....it is not a question of simply out-executing our competitors. The nuances will be lost in the conversation. To be the best, you have to do it differently, and be bold in your approach. It is a full body commitment."
Perfect Service was the result. And I am still convinced the principles of Perfect Knowledge, Perfect Improvement, and the Perfect Guarantee, can be the bedrock for other firms embarking on that same journey.
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