Tags >> cost reduction



It's incredible how much bad customer service can (and will) cost you, and how much great customer service can (and will if you take the right actions) make you. This is a fun exercise you can do with your people to make this point clearly and effectively.

There's much shouting about how 'unfair' Trip Advisor are and how annoying it is to get bad reviews, so I feel compelled to put the record straight. Here goes:

> It's not 'unfair' everyone has the same issues!

> If you get it right it's free worldwide advertising for a little bit of effort, what on earth is anyone moaning about?

Here's a simple paragraph on John Lewis from the Guardian in 2010

 

In the depths of what everyone keeps telling us is the deepest financial and economic crisis since the second world war, John Lewis plainly has not done badly (operating profit up 20%, if you didn't read the business pages last week). That's partly because it stacks its shelves with goods of a certain quality, and sells them to a certain kind of customer with a certain standard of service. After all, Middle England loves John Lewis: if a product is on sale in one of its stores, you know you can trust it. Plus you can be sure you'll be served by someone who really knows what they're talking about and, most unusually of all, is eager to help.

  • For the last 300 or so years the marketing / manufacturing model has worked well (so we're used to it!)
  • BUT the world is now changing (very fast)
  • the customer, previously disempowered, now has the ability to find out about you and feedback on their experience with you like never before
  • worldwide competition has made everything super competitive
  • The 'old thinking' is 'cheaper and faster': but this is a recipe for disaster : not only do we struggle to do this (see the fate of most UK industry), but also the customer doesn't REALLY want this (otherwise we'd all be driving around in Kia cars)
  • The key differentiator and recipe for success in the 21st Century will be consistency & reliability of customer experience, combined with continual improvement
  • Manufacturers know this for PRODUCT, but not yet for SERVICE
  • So we need a SYSTEMATIC approach to getting the customer experience consistent, reliable and improving
  • And noone yet has put a system forward (with simple, powerful measures) that does this ... until now
  • My system does exactly this: called 'Great or Poor' it empowers organisations, teams and individuals to ensure the experience they deliver (internally and externally) is both consistent, reliable and continually improving.
  • A study by the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) today reveals that UK firms fear losing 10% of their customer base over the next three years, at a cost of almost two and quarter billion pounds.

    As cash–strapped customers spend less and shop around more amid continuing economic turmoil, business leaders warn of an impending war for customers and identify customer retention and acquisition as critical to success.

    The study is based on research among senior decision-makers at 250 of the UK’s largest consumer firms, as well as 1,000 consumers.

    As customers, we know: as soon as someone tries to “sell” to us, we clam up, erect barriers, and do all we can to avoid ‘being sold to’.

    In order to combat this, dysfunctional sales techniques have arisen, where sales people (desperate to ‘make a sale’ and ‘achieve budget’) try harder and harder to ‘make the sale’.

    This charade ends up as a ‘cat and mouse’ game, where all sides waste time, effort  and money:

    The internet has empowered the consumer like nothing before … and this change is still in it’s infancy.

     

    Going forward you cannot hide poor service behind a sexy brand, or bad practices behind clever marketing.

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