We have previously discussed how to recruit, treat and keep the good people with the organisation and how to optimise their performance for best results.
Now I would like to highlight the importance of customer service for your business.
We depend on our customers to exist, prosper and survive
as a business , our customers are not just VIPs they are MIPs (The
MOST important people) but are we doing enough to keep them?
Do we know what they really want or expect? Are we meeting those expectations?
Every time I personally deal with
any organisation as a customer, I just can't stop analysing the
service that I get, from Banks, Hotels, Restaurants, Airlines, Shops,
Telecom providers, Internet Service Providers etc …
In Middle East the alarming reality is that only a few organisations deliver good service and good value for money, others try hard but they do not get there. The rest are just happy using customer service slogans for marketing purposes!
I have been to a reputable organisation that actually displayed
many signs of being member of Dubai's service excellence scheme
and spent a lot of time and money advertising it everywhere. On
the 3 different counts that
I have approached the counter staff with a normal inquiry about one of their products they did not have a clue what I was talking about and they did not even want to listen or make the effort to find out !! They simply instructed me to come back later when a manager is on duty
Am I singing a familiar tune? I am sure some of you have been subject to this indifferent treatment before.
How long do we need before we are
forced to recognise the fact that "it does cost between 5 and
10 times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing
one?" and that our competition now is not just local or regional
it may not even come from the same traditional competitors or industry!
Remember the European case of "airlines vs. EuroStar trains"
or "business travel vs. Internet / Satellite video conferencing?"
Customers have more choices than ever before. "if I can not
find what I want here I will simply buy it online from the comfort
of my armchair and get it delivered with minimal effort."
The abolishment of monopoly laws in the region as well as the international trade agreements mean that only those who provide exemplary customer service will exist in the very near future.
What does Customer Service mean to You? A slogan, a buzzword to use for marketing and promotion, a training course for your front-line people or a few words in a mission statement?
It should be your business CULTURE, an organisational and individual culture, a way of life, a set of values and the only correct way to do business in our modern days. Top to bottom, side to side everyone in the organisation should be a service provider ,it is the internal supply chain or value chain. We must serve our internal customers with the same levels of courtesy, care, commitment and flexibility extended to our external customers. If this value chain gets broken, external customers suffer from bad service and we risk losing them forever.
I once read a quote by one of the top executives of SAS Scandinavian airlines , he said:
"If you are not serving a customer , you should be serving someone who is!" and I totally agree with him.
Delivering excellent customer service
is no rocket science but it will not come overnight. changing the
corporate culture is a very daunting task and there are many syndromes
to fight like the "It is not my job" or "It is not
my fault" etc... Blaming other people or other departments
is quite common , we simply do not realise that our customer will
not only loose trust in that other person or department, but will
also loose trust in you , your department and the whole organisation.
If you are serious about improving customer service in your organisation you should ask yourself these 20 Questions:
- How do we define "the highest possible service"
using SMART goals?
- Did we make it easy for our customers to contact us?
- Do we have a proper "Service Level Agreement -SLA"
or just some "terms and conditions" that merely protect
us against possible liability, cite the "customer's Dos
and DON'Ts" rather than tell them how we intend to satisfy
their needs, and how they can measure our performance?
- Are we tracking all customers' interactions with our organisation,
and are we using metrics?
- Do we need to centralise customer service or customer care operations, do we have a budget, and is it a cost or a profit centre?
- What is an acceptable response time to customer's inquiries
by phone, fax or e-mail and how are we currently responding
to those inquiries?
- Do we have the adequate resources to serve our customers and are we all competent with customer service best practices or International Standards?
- How much do we spend annually on customer service training?
- How many of our top and middle managers did attend those training sessions?
- When was the last time we conducted a customer satisfaction survey, and how often should we do it?
- Did we ever benchmark our service levels against some sort of standards?
- When was the last time we looked at assessing and streamlining People, Processes and Technology to improve our service levels?
- Would CRM applications or technology achieve customer satisfaction alone, or do we need to use it as a tool that represents only a part of the solution?
- Do we have a service recovery framework or a plan that is clear to understand and easy to implement?
- Did we empower all our staff in direct contact with our customers to take quick actions and decisions whenever needed?
- Do we have a Quality Assurance policy, how is it used, do our customers know about it and were they consulted, how did they contribute to it?
- Do we have anyone from the top management team in charge of analysing surveys, responding to suggestions / complaints and taking the right corrective measures quickly?
- Are we currently applying the same standards internally, do we need to?
- Do we need to change People, Processes or Technology?
- What are the obstacles that we need to overcome in order to deliver real value and unrivalled service levels?
When you honestly answer the 20 questions above and come up with an action plan, you will be set on the right track for total customer service excellence. Good Luck.
By:
Amr Selim
Dubai - UAE
Copyright © 2005
Copy or distribution of this article or parts of it , is forbidden ,unless a written authorisation
is obtained from the author.
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