There is a Science That Drives Service Excellence

There is a Science That Drives Service Excellence

There are many trip wires that can and do cause businesses to deliver disastrous customer experiences. The good news is that the experience minefield can be navigated without adverse consequences, if a level of science is applied to the business of serving customers until they are extremely delighted.

The science of service is about the formula that a business uses to combine and optimize key elements that create the best customer outcomes. The formula is pretty standard, but can be tailored to harmonize with the particulars of the business. Similar to how a chef would modify a standard recipe to make it more unique.

 

The science of service is about the formula that a business uses to combine and optimize key elements that create the best customer outcomes.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the trip wires can be avoided if a business pays obsessive attention to controlling some strategic levers that can anchor the quality of the service delivery. Let’s take a look at some of these levers that are integral to the science of service excellence.

Employee wellness is unquestioningly a major lever that helps to blueprint the quality of customer experience. Just think about it for a minute. The business of life and living, place individuals under significant stress, with an accumulation of stressors that push many individuals to the point where they’re holding on, just barely, to their sanity. This means that within a business environment, the state of employee health influences the psychology of the business culture and, by extension, the quality of customer relationships.

 

Employee wellness is unquestioningly a major lever that helps to blueprint the quality of customer experience.

 

My point here, is that there is a huge benefit to creating a business environment that is intentionally enriched. Employees who find themselves in a green and growing space that is psychologically safe and nurturing, are themselves endowed with enriched energy that supports positive internal and external interactions. Internal teamworking thrives and external customer care is elevated.

If a business wants to elevate its service delivery, investing in employee wellness should be an integral part of the service excellence model.

 

Having a clearly articulated service excellence strategy is critical to success.

 

Having a clearly articulated service excellence strategy is critical to success. Many businesses with which I have interacted, have no strategy for building a long game for keeping customers happy, loyal and engaged as a community. The strategy should be clear about how service excellence will be used to generate brand differentiation around an exceptional customer experience, that is delivered in a consistent and unvarying style.

So, to all the business leaders out there, please avoid this lack of a service excellence strategy trip wire.

 

Value differentiation on the basis of the strategic use of technology to make life easy, convenient and simple for customers, is a big winner.

 

Value differentiation on the basis of the strategic use of technology to make life easy, convenient and simple for customers, is a big winner. There is no shortage of technology and digital solutions that are enablers for solving customers’ problems. The availability of an array of apps, mobile wallet solutions, self-service transaction channels, cashless, contactless and countless other solutions that simplify the customer’s journey, is wide and highly accessible.

The driver here, is the decision by the business to be responsive to the customer’s need for uncomplicated solutions that are responsive, speedy and low-effort. The inclusion of artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality tools that can humanize the customer’s experience, is not only necessary, it’s inescapable. For every business that has not added deep digital solutions to its arsenal for keeping customers happy, there are several competitors that are nailing the technology usage game.

 

Another element of the science, is the need to operationalize customer data.

 

 

Technology solutions need to be integrated into the process for simplifying the customer’s journey.

Another element of the science, is the need to operationalize customer data. I’ve come across so many businesses that either don’t collect enough customer data, or, having collected the data, don’t convert the intelligence into customer value points, which, as we know, can then be converted into business value.

Diligent compassion for creating humanized experiences will always be a winner. Let me give you a shortened version of a personal experience. I was at a financial institution recently and an elderly lady and her relative (I’m assuming), entered the lobby. The elderly lady was using a walker and seemed to be having serious difficulty walking as well. What eventually happened after my intervention, was that the elderly lady was allowed to sit, whilst her relative conducted business on her behalf.

 

Diligent compassion for creating humanized experiences will always be a winner.

 

 

This situation needed a humanized response that was reflexive on the part of the staff, without the need for a third-party intervention.

This brings me to “common sense.” It’s the simple ability to apply sensible solutions to everyday situations and it’s my final point in the science formula.