Over and over again, Companies and Organisations announce ‘reorganisations’, ‘refocuses’ and ‘new initiatives’ based around delivering great customer service. These are generally well intentioned, but, so often they fail.

It sounds simple and easy (and blindingly obvious common sense) but it’s hugely hard to make excellence in customer service work in reality. Success can only be delivered by:

• EVERYONE (yes, everyone, not just the customer facing people … a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link) being focussed OBSESSIVELY on the needs of the customer.
• Irrespective of their roles and duties.
• Irrespective of ‘company procedure’, ‘year end deadlines’, ‘profit margins’, ‘budgets’ and all the other lame and irritating excuses that drive the customer wild.

This requires a huge leap of faith, from the top to the bottom, in any organisation, that,

• if we do this we will achieve success, not
• we’ll do this unless
  • budgets are tight
  • profits are affected
  • policy is bent

because if you deviate from the overriding aim to deliver great service in any way at any time, this not only alienates the customer, but, more importantly, sends a HUGE signal to your people saying ‘we’re not really serious about this’, and ‘you can only deliver great service when we decide you can’.

Resulting in the people responding ‘if I don’t know when or if I can, it’s best to play it safe and not bother’.