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Steve Ezar, Consultant Well
done is better than well said. As Mr. Franklin
articulates, actions do speak louder than words. In the world of
customer service it is critical how the customer is treated throughout
their shopping experience, not the intent behind the company’s quality
slogan. The challenge becomes
how to transform the customer service strategy into exceptional customer
service. A mechanism to
ingrain the desired customer service behavior is through implementing a
standardization process that distills the company’s customer service
values into specific actions for all employees to internalize.
Standardizing the customer service process provides employees
with a clear understanding of expectations, and it also provides more
macro-level benefits to the organization such as:
Branding
Opportunities At first glance it
may seem to be a large leap from the customer service department to the
marketing department and how can a customer service standard affect
company/product branding? It
is not as far of a leap as you think! For example, two
market leaders in very different sectors that base their corporate
branding on customer service are Nordstroms and Disney.
Nordstrom’s prides itself on their employee’s zealot-like drive
for outstanding customer service. Nordstrom’s
management has established a standard set of procedure on how to interact
with customers including the sales person coming from behind the
counter and thanking the customer for shopping at Nordstroms as they are
handed their purchases. This
seemingly small detail could make the difference in brand recognition
between Nordstroms and other retailers, enabling Nordstrom to position
themselves and their prices at a premium level. Disney requires
extensive employee training to understand “the A customer’s
experience is growing more important and marketers are leveraging that
importance as a way to drive the attention of consumers to their brand.
However, if a company is going to undertake a customer-focused
brand strategy then there must be a system in place that assures delivery
of that promised level of quality. It
is the standardization of that process that enables the organization to
rally around a single set of customer-focused actions that contribute to a
competitive advantage. Cost
Savings External service
quality standards not only benefit an organization from a branding
perspective, but they also contribute to the company’s bottom line.
A standards approach can reduce a company’s cost through customer
retention, process efficiencies, and reduced training and education costs. The common-knowledge
approach to sales and marketing is that it is “cheaper to keep a
customer than it is to get a new one” is fundamental to why a
consistent, high quality customer experience is critical.
If a customer receives that consistency with every interaction the
probability increases that they will become a recurring customer.
The assurance that the experience will be consistent is based on
the foundational values and actions that are embedded into the customer
service standard. Process efficiencies
drive lower cost per transaction and are developed over time as the best
practices become evident and are integrated into the customer service
standard. As customer
satisfaction increases, the number of customer complaints that require
attention will decrease, further reducing the cost of non-value added
activities. Training and
education costs will be reduced through standardization of the customer
service process. When a proven
process is implemented and documented in a company’s standard the cost
of training a new employee is minimized due to efficiencies in the
training process and stability of the customer service process.
The standard imparts a certain level of employee
interchangeability, providing a common level of training and performance
expectations. Competitiveness In an increasingly
competitive market, companies in all sectors have to leverage every
corporate competency to maintain and preferably grow market share.
The hyper-competitiveness of a global market makes it difficult to
compete on price or even product quality alone, shifting the advantage to
the company whose customers have the best experience. Many companies who
transplant their customer service organization overseas have been faced
with this issue of balancing cost effectiveness and customer service
quality. Organizations that
correctly manage the quality of an overseas customer service department
will receive the market benefit of repeat customers and customers
defecting from competitors. The
key to retaining a repeatable process is through effective training in
which both the training system and the customer service process are
developed with a standardization methodology. The
Process Drives the Results A customer’s experience needs to be good, but also requires consistency. The organization’s service quality cannot depend on the luck of hiring a person with a pension for customer service or the chance that an unhappy customer happens to talk to a good manager. It needs to rest on a proven system that guarantees an expected level of quality on a consistent basis. There will always be the stars that provide over and above service, but it is the standards-driven consistency that will keep customers satisfied. Remember, a low price may get a customer in the door, but their experience will bring them back. For additional information, please feel free to email me at sezar@hillgroupinc.com. These materials have been prepared for educational and information purposes only. They are not consulting advice or opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, a consultant-client relationship between The Hill Group, Inc. and any recipient of this material. Readers should not act upon this information without seeking professional advice. 
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