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Sunday, September 15, 2019

Creating Better Customer Experiences [5]

[There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.  Roger Staubach]

The dominance of the service sector, global competition, rising labor and technology costs and demanding customers forces companies to create excellent customer experiences or fail. In the Now Economy, Companies must know their customer’s definition of service quality (SQ).  Organizations have to provide service experiences that meet or exceed customer expectations at a reasonable price.

It’s all about the service experience! Research has found that about 70% of customer defections are due to service problems. Customers evaluate service encounters to assess the quality of a firm’s offerings and whether they will continue do business with them in the future.  

Improving service quality is like taking vitamins, eating healthy and exercising regularly. Although the results may not be immediate, long-term benefits are significant. Managing service quality is not a “quick fix,” but rather a way of life for companies who are serious about improvement (e.g., Disney, FedEx, Ritz-Carlton, Singapore Airlines).

So, How Can We “Wow” Customers? 
Here are 10 recommendations that lead to superior customer value:

1. Co-create services with customers. Learn what customers value by incorporating the voice of the customer into the service development process.

2. Focus your improvement programs outward, on market breakpoints. By defining and mapping customer journeys, you can see the service experience as the customer sees it. Realize that customers view service as a totality, not an isolated set of activities.

3. Create a tangible representation of service quality. Hertz #1 Club Gold service communicates a premium, value-added bundle of services to business travelers seeking a hassle-free car rental experience.

4. Use teamwork to promote service excellence — service workers who support one another and achieve together can avoid service burnout.

5. Create a culture of service obsession based on key SQ determinants such as professionalism, attitudes/ behaviors, accessibility and flexibility, reliability/ trustworthiness and service recovery.

6. Develop metrics that are specific in nature, such as a 99% on-time delivery rate or an average customer wait time for telephone orders of less than 20 seconds. Benchmark best practices for each service metric employed.

7. Employee selection, job design and training are crucial to building customer satisfaction and SQ. The ability to respond quickly, competently and pleasantly to customers needs to be a priority.

8. Reward quality efforts in marketing. Seek opportunities to reinforce quality behaviors when they occur. Reward employees on the basis of commitment and effort, not just sales outcomes.

9. Think of service as a seamless process, not a series of independent functions. Service quality occurs when the entire service experience is managed effectively and efficiently and the organization is aligned to respond to customer needs whether it’s at the pre-sale, sale or post-sale.

10. Integrate customer information across all sales channels. The information made available to online and offline service representatives should be consistent. 

Checklist — How to Improve Service Quality

□ Does your company really listen to its customers? Give a specific example of how good listening improved the service experience.

  Reliability means performing the promised services dependably and accurately. On a 10-point scale, where 1 is unreliable and 10 is perfectly reliable, rate your company and explain why.

  How well does your company perform the service basics?”

  How effectively does your company manage service design — systems, people and the physical environment? Provide an example of how lack of planning in one of these areas resulted in a “fail point” during a customer encounter.

Service recovery refers to how effectively companies respond to service failures. Cite an example when a service failure occurred and how it was handled.

Teamwork is an important dynamic in sustaining service workers’ motivation. How can you improve teamwork in your organization?

Internal service is crucial to service improvement, as customer satisfaction often mirrors employee satisfaction. To what extent does your company assess internal service quality?

This blog post is the 5th in a series extracted from Superior Customer Value – Finding and Keeping Customers in the Now Economy, 4th Ed. (2019, Routledge Publishing/ Taylor & Francis). For further information, contact Art Weinstein at artweinstein9@gmail.com , 954-309-0901, www.artweinstein.com .     









10 comments:

  1. I have been in the service industry most of my working life, and it is refreshing to see a blog that addresses employee burnout.

    Using teamwork, creating a culture of excellence, employee selection, and rewards only works if it is not lip service. Too many companies try to provided excellent service but fail to lay the groundwork.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The first company I thought of when I read this article was Chick Fil A! They are known for their over-the-top customer service which creates that culture of service obsession mentioned. In terms of incorporating the voice of customers, at my local Chick Fil A, they created a separate mobile ordering area to ease the crowds and confusion between those customers and others waiting for normal take-out orders. This initiative was based primarily on customer feedback and really listening to their suggestions.

    I never really thought of companies creating excellent customer service or failing, but I think that is a great way to put it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Chick-fil-A has great food and service which leads to extremely high levels of customer loyalty and retention

      Delete
  3. In many consumer based industries the main factor of maintaining great experiences, reviews and retention rates is just the employees and coworkers. A genuine effort honestly goes a long way,

    ReplyDelete
  4. Obviously, the customer's experiences should be of high importance. It is important that top management maintain a proper culture to establish customer satisfaction through their brand.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for the marvelous posting! I definitely enjoyed reading it, you will be a great author.I will ensure that I bookmark your blog and will come back later in life. I want to encourage continue your great job, have a nice day!
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    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for sharing thought regarding customer experience. However, Industry 4.0 going to change customer experience as well as customer expectation.

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    ReplyDelete
  7. I think that customer service is crucial for any company success in the future.I feel the employees are the one who are driving the experience for the customers. Customer service plays a big factor in the customer experience, because this could determine if the customer is engaged with the company and would like to shop again or go to the place again. In this article, the author talks about ways of how to improve customer service and thrive for success. An example that has excellent customer service would be Chick- fil- a, every time I go I get the welcoming feeling because everyone there are so nice and give a great customer experience which is one of the reason the customer wants to go there again. I agree with the author that customer service in the service industry or in any type of business.

    ReplyDelete

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