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 business in the eyes of the customer.
The takeaway here is that customers appreciate when a business owns responsibility for outcome failures and does somersaults to fix the circumstances. This makes the customer feel valued, special and communicates that he or she matters to the business. Great for bonus points, brand elevation and repeat business.
Becoming known for great customer outcomes does not happen by happenstance, it happens through the intentional and continual pursuit of customer happiness.
Becoming known for great customer outcomes does not happen by happenstance, it happens through the intentional and continual pursuit of customer happiness.
Businesses can take several routes to achieving customer happiness, the more commonly-occurring include customer service training, targeted service improvement initiatives and service transformation interventions. All three of these gateways serve as corrective or strengthening mechanisms for existing gaps in customer experience outcomes.
Customer service training focuses on either supplementing, strengthening or correcting skills required to generate positive customer encounters, whilst targeted service improvement initiatives address specific process, technology, or operational changes. Service transformation interventions on the other hand, are more sweeping in scope and overhaul the culture, behaviours, operating model and service delivery structure of the business, to create true customer centricity.
There are specific conditions that dictate which of the three initiatives will be best suited to the business case for uplifting customer outcomes.
Customer service training focuses on either supplementing, strengthening or correcting skills required to generate positive customer encounters, whilst targeted service improvement initiatives address specific process, technology, or operational changes.
Stand-alone customer service training (also known as customer engagement training), focusses on behavioural change and generally, should be undertaken if the internal tapestry of the business is sound. If the internal operating structure of the business is faulty, is burdened by rampant inefficiency or cultural toxicity, the training will be positioned atop scaffolding that will not support the adoption of new service-oriented standards, habits, behaviours and practices. As a matter of fact, there will be collision between the existing and the new, with the chances of success stacked against the latter.
Service improvement initiatives include the onboarding of new technology, new processes, new systems and new standards that are designed to create an uplift in the customer’s experience. Online banking, self-service systems, mobile apps, automated payment solutions and the integration of artificial intelligence into the rubric of business operations, are examples of service improvements. While, strictly speaking, customer service training can be considered a service improvement initiative, it’s important enough to stand alone.
Service transformation interventions on the other hand, are more sweeping in scope and overhaul the culture, behaviours, operating model and service delivery structure of the business, to create true customer centricity.
The value-adding benefits of service improvement initiatives include benefits speed, customer convenience, ease of doing business, responsiveness to customers’ needs and making the work lives of employees less routinized by reducing repetitive tasks.
Finally, the service transformation intervention deconstructs the entire modus operandi of the business in favour of a service architecture that favours superlative customer outcomes. The design of the business model is now reengineered around a new perpetual relevance strategy, new customer experience vision, charter and standards, as well as new technology, customer data analytics and seamless cross departmental operations.
The focal point of the transformation journey is to achieve a permanent solution to delivering a consistent, standardized and superlative level of service excellence. Some of the features that characterize a business that’s well into its service transformation journey include a firmly-imbedded sense of urgency, day-to-day efficiency, exceptional levels of responsiveness, highly-engaged customer communities, customer advocacy, brand reputation for service excellence driving brand appeal and a negligible level of ball-dropping.
The design of the business model is now reengineered around a new perpetual relevance strategy, new customer experience vision, charter and standards, as well as new technology, customer data analytics and seamless cross departmental operations.
So, apart from budget considerations and the fact that the three gateways are not mutually exclusive, how does a business decide which is the best fit for its service delivery gaps?
One consideration will be whether, given the existing state of the base operation, an incremental shift through either behavioural change or service improvement, will provide enough traction to scale the customer experience to service excellence level.
A second consideration will focus on the current level of competitiveness within the particular business sector. In highly competitive markets the question is not so much about tinkering with parts of the delivery framework through service training or improvement, but with the need for radical transformation of the base state.
The questions boil down to, “Will tinkering with the parts be sufficient to deliver service greatness?” or “Do we disrupt radically, if we are to remain in the service greatness game?”
The answers to these questions will guide the business to its best-fit gateway.