Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Similarly, every business wants to attain gloriously positive customer outcomes, but many balk at the colossal effort needed to achieve these results. Getting to a place of service excellence is not for the faint-hearted business. It requires an iron-clad will to not yield …
When is a complaint not just a complaint? When it results in a customer being so peeved about how his or her complaint is addressed, that he or she “cancels” future interactions with the offending business. This inability to course-correct with a customer has just cost the business future earnings, the building of brand equity …
Some customer interactions go uphill, some go downhill, while others go sideways. Moderation of the energy within the interaction, by customer contact employees, is essential to achieving a harmonious, solution-driven and courteous landing, where both customer and business come away with acceptable value. The practice of intentional pausing, using a series of short, coordinated steps …
Shouldn’t internal service delivery and internal customer experience be equal to external service delivery and external customer experience? Yes, would be the resounding response to this question. However, we don’t need to conduct a poll to know that this is not the reality in many businesses. An inescapable reality is that often, the state of …
It is said that ships don’t sink because of the water around them, they sink because of the water that gets in them. The same principle can be seen in action when we look at leadership teams that drive the performance of a business. A business does not sink when there’s unity of purpose or …
Believe it or not, customers tend to remember great service recovery scenarios more so than those experiences that are consistently positive. When a business drops the ball with a customer, but does a great job of remediating the situation and making amends, the experience becomes memorable and, in many cases, increases the credibility of the …
In the same way that all management is change management, all of the customer’s experiences are also cultural experiences. In every encounter, the customer is interacting with both the foundation and the quicksand that comprise the nature or culture of the business. The foundation will be those moving parts that function well, whilst the quicksand …
I’ve encountered many business leaders who are really good at adopting the business concept or the business model that is the “flavour of the month.” Blue ocean strategy, balanced scorecard model, circular economy practices, corporate social responsibility, environmental, social and governance framework….the list goes on and on. Often, all of the corporate energy is consumed …
Many business leaders believe that if the price is right, the frontline people smile, the products work and more recently, if there’s an online payment solution, then it’s a home run to the service excellence plate. In reality, it’s not quite that simple. Customers interact and by extension, they intersect with every element of the …
There are so many ways that a business can start its journey to service excellence. Conversely, there are so many more ways to retard start up of the same journey. I have to resist going down the rabbit hole of highlighting the many retardants, but will mention one that is enshrined in the popular assertion…. …