David Rance

If you ever have a great customer service experience, what thoughts go through your mind? Given the generally low standard of service these days it was probably “WOW!” The key question is ‘Was it a one-off or is this level of service consistent for the supplier?’ The former means you spoke to someone who overcame the normal customer service processes, policies and metrics or was someone with whom you had a natural rapport. This is known as ‘service by default’. However the latter means service quality has been institutionalized within that organization and this is known as ‘service by design’. This is what separates average companies from great ones. But how is it achieved?

It starts with an understanding that great service experiences contribute to customer loyalty and long term value. They also lead to high employee morale. In these enlightened organizations service is part of customer management and measured in the same way as sales and marketing activities....

The blessing (or curse) of running a customer service operation is that you always seem to see things from a different perspective to the rest of the business. For example whilst marketing, sales, product development and even IT are spending small fortunes on increasing market share, launching new products and implementing new systems, customer service is constantly under the hammer to reduce operating costs.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record, saying the same thing over and over again. “Customer service is the customer experience. It’s where the rubber hits the road and either reinforces the marketing message, sales promise and product expectations, or it damages your reputation forever.” In my experience, very few companies have a clear customer strategy. Instead they have a set of functional strategies, driven by different objectives and measured in different ways. The result is inconsistent customer experiences, and internal conflicts as well as poor ROI.

Opinion on the role of customer service is polarized between two extremes. To some, customer service is a cost center where costs should be minimized by speaking to customers as little as possible or, even better, by moving the operation to a far off land where costs are lower. Never mind that their language is different, the customers will just have to figure it out!

To the more enlightened, customer service is an opportunity to live the brand values, establish real market differentiation and absolutely the best way to deliver the customer strategy. Why? Because when customers call customer service they a) have a need and b) they are engaged with you. You have their ear. And if you can help them, they can be your friends for life. So when they call, it is the best time to help the customer get more from your products and services by ‘adding value’ to their relationship with you.

Whatever you do, don’t ever call it selling. That’s anathema to customer...

Western countries have now moved from a supply economy, where we made things and sold them to customers, to a demand economy, where the customer is increasingly in control. As a result, companies large and small are struggling to adjust to this radical shift in power. The exponential growth in cocreation of new products and services is just one clear example of the impact of this change.

But even in the so-called developing world, that change is taking place, fueled by global access and distribution and enabled by the Internet. It is truly a global village. I was recently working with a large company in Pakistan that had grown massively in just under four years. Amid all the recent political and military turmoil, I was conducting service-excellence training for 850 executives, managers and team leaders.

Company executives had recognized they needed to change their business model if they were to continue to grow and prosper, particularly in light of...