Our last blog focused on Customer & Service excellence, competencies and skills. But how do you actually build this?   It does help if you and your leadership team have excellent customer service skills yourselves. Your other options are to employ others that have the experience to help you build this capability, through various mechanisms such as education program to build awareness and develop skills, to help coach and mentor your leadership team.

What else? It is essential to look at and create a pattern of excellence, but what does a model of excellence look like? It can be some or all or more of the following; define what could contribute to that and then map how you may work towards achieve this but more importantly measuring this. Some skills are more desirable than others; it’s important to grade this in importance the must haves vs we can build this competency.

When building you pattern of excellence, it is essential also to define your values, or your code of practice which you live, breath and strive to overachieve!

 It’s essential to define and live and breathe your company code of practice.    @itilangel

Here are some suggested ideas;

• No 1 – Conviction   This is the belief that customer service excellence is the ultimate! The power and believe in this attitude is of the utmost importance. The belief customer service is vital for customer loyalty, retention and excellent business sense!
• No 2 – Look after your staff/yourselves    Make them happy, look after your team, because your team looks after your customers. A happy team means, good environment, culture and in turn happy customers. If your belief in great customer service and you live and breathe this philosophy so will your teams. It’s infectious.
• No 3 – Customer service standards     Define what the standards are and more importantly why. This information marketed and placed around the office environment will help remind everyone what we are here to do and why it is vital. Positive messages create positive environments.
• No 4 – Commitment to excellence    Customer service excellence is what makes some organisations stand out from the crowd. Service-related issues drive customers away not price or product! Commit to delivering excellence, a customer 1st attitude, promise and guarantee.
• No 5- Develop your staff    Your frontline staff are the face of the company it’s so important to invest in your team. Many options, training, workshops, coaching and mentoring, team building and more. More importantly, empower your staff to do the right thing.
• No 6- Performance sessions    Meeting regularly with staff, don’t bother with annual performance reviews, it’s so outdated way to understand how your staff feel, how they are progress and what achievements you’ve made together!
• No 7- Customer relationship management (CRM)     So vital to have built and maintain your customers and your business relationship with them. CRM is a strategy for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with your customers and potential new customers.
• No 8 –  Take Action    If you are going to talk the talk then you must be prepared to walk the walk. It’s all great to have a plan and brag about it, but why not carry it out? If you do not carry out your ideas and merely talk about things, your staff and customers will move on. There’s plenty of other companies willing to serve your customers.
• No 9 – Team building and bonding    Teamwork is vital so investing in building your teams, and bonding sessions are part of what can lift your team to the next level. It’s essential to invest in your team as well as have fun; it’s about understanding each other, appreciating and developing your team.
• No 10 – Focus on your customer    Customers are your No1 focus doesn’t matter what industry you are in or what you do. Everything revolves around satisfying the needs and more importantly the expectations, desires of your customers.

Customer Excellence helps you stick out from the crowd. Did you know this little fact:

“A customer is four times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service related vs. price or product related. (Bain & Co.)”

All of the above rely on a caring attitude, emotional intelligence and more…. Its just not enough to know your products or services, but service excellence requires going to the next level.

If you need some help in Customer Service or Service excellence contact ITSMC for a confidential discussion. That was a plug. Have a great day! Come back soon to read some more of our thoughts, tips and exciting things were working on.

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