How to ensure your organisation, team or group delivers consistently excellent customer experiences.

Empowering your people and building sales through a systematic approach to customer service.

1.       Beliefs

a.       Start with your beliefs:

                                                               i.      You are not in business to make money: you are in business to deliver something so well that people want to pay you for it (and come back again, buy more and recommend you to all their friends etc)

1.       Ensure all your stakeholders know and agree with this

2.       Ask and listen constantly

b.      Then measure your customers’ beliefs about you (using the ‘great or poor score’) (internal customers first, then external)

2.       Emotions

a.       Start feeding back the results of the scoring

                                                               i.      What emotions are these producing?

                                                             ii.      What issues do you need to address?

b.      Back to beliefs

                                                               i.      Start thinking about your ‘customer focused mission’

                                                             ii.      Refine and agree

                                                            iii.      Publish and use your ‘customer focused mission’ as a compass for all that you do

c.       Start recognising your ‘moments of truth’ and your ‘customers’ REAL needs’ from your feedback

3.       Actions

a.       Start taking actions to align your business strategy, process, systems and behaviour around your ‘Customer focused mission’

b.      Filter all your findings through your ‘customers’ REAL needs’

c.       Start delivering some or all of:

§  ‘Great or Poor training’ for everyone to ensure buy in and empowerment

§  Weekly ‘Go the Extra Inch Meetings’

§  Frequently meeting (and management empowered) Quality action groups

§  Monthly brainstorming in teams and departments on ‘moments of truth’

§  The basics of Customer service: training for all (and as part of your induction)

§  ‘Sales through service’ training

§  Monthly or bi monthly short high impact workshops on ‘Go the Extra Inch’ and ‘The Customer’s REAL needs’

§  Other training and workshops: eg:

·         Problem Anticipation and Solving

·         Effective Communication

·         Effective Use of Time

·         Negotiation

·         Empowerment & Responsibility

·         Assertiveness

·         Using Complaints to Build Customer Loyalty

·         Dealing with Difficult Customers

·         Using Stress Effectively

§  Catching people doing something well

§  Listen and learn sessions: back to the floor

§  Realigning problem behaviour and problem solving using ‘win/win agreements’

§  Addressing terrorists

4.       Results

                                                               i.      Continue to refine and listen using measures

·         The ‘Great or Poor score’

o   Internal customers (first)

o   External customers (second)

                                                             ii.      Other measures

·         Repeat business

·         Referrals

·         Others specific to you!

                                                            iii.      Have a clear and empowering scoreboard

                                                           iv.      Take action around your findings (back to action

point 3)

                                                             v.      Keep listening and refining around your

‘customer focused mission’

                                                           vi.      Back to the top!