Promise More And Deliver More

If you position your company as the "value provider", you had better deliver more. By raising expectations, you are raising the stakes. If you fail to deliver, the result could be catastrophic.

It is easy to acknowledge the need and importance of a high level of customer satisfaction, but much more difficult to deliver it. Those who sell value cannot give lip service to providing positive service experiences for their customers if they are to support a higher price and prosper in the coming years. Even discounters are delivering good service at the level they position themselves. The discounter may not promise frills, but if they deliver what they promise, it is perceived as good service.

We are all in the service business, no matter what product or service we provide. Service is not fixing something. Service is everything the customer experiences in dealing with your company, from the way they are treated on the phone to delivering on all aspects as promised. At all times and in all ways, we are delivering service to our customers. Even when we do not pay attention to service and are not aware of the level we are giving, it has an effect on our future and current customers.

If excellent customer service is important and we all know we have to do it well, why isn't it happening? It takes more than good intentions to deliver the level of customer service that not only satisfies but also creates advocates for us and our company. Simply meeting expectations no longer causes customers to be delighted and will not be enough to make you successful in the future.

You have to provide service that not only exceeds what your competitors provide, but it also must exceed what you tell our customers to expect. Each time a customer has contact with your business, there is an opportunity for a "moment of truth." During these frequent moments of truth, you have the opportunity to win or lose the customer by what you do or don't do.

It is essential to understand that customers make judgments not based on facts but on their perceptions of those facts. Many times your customers do not have the knowledge, skill, or information to make an objective evaluation of your level of service. They are not experts in what you do nor do they know what would be a reasonable amount of time and effort needed to resolve a problem. They only know how they feel about the problem. Their perceptions, not what the facts are as you see them, determine how customers feel about your service and company.

Based on the increasing service awareness and need to develop customer loyalty, it is important for all companies to know how they are serving customers and to develop a concrete plan to continuously improve the level of service. The level of perceived value and perceptions of service determines a customer's willingness to do business within a specific price level, if at all.

If customers compare you to the best companies that deliver service, you should also learn from the best. Identify the techniques and methods of the best companies, not just in your industry, and incorporate them into the way you are serving your customers. This technique, called benchmarking, has been very successful in improving organizations, regardless of their business.

Not only does customer service have a role in customer retention, it also affects a company's cost of marketing and its bottom-line profits. Studies verify, and we know instinctively, that it costs significantly more to attract a new customer than to sell a current one. Studies show that it can be up to 15 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing one.

Based on the high cost of attracting new customers, can you afford poorly skilled, poorly motivated employees taking care of your customers? According to a survey of smaller businesses by Dun and Bradstreet, their number one worry for the coming year was how to hire ample quality staff. Their number three and four worries, respectively, were how to retain workers and low worker motivation. In difficult or easy times, it makes sound business sense to invest in your human assets to protect your customers rather than continuously attracting new customers only to lose them because of poor service. My book, SMART STAFFING: How to Hire, Reward, and Keep Top Employees for Your Growing Company, which has been published in the People's Republic of China, addresses these key issues.

Skills of dealing with customers are critical. So many times