Service Management. Is a flexible service the same as a personalized service?
We usually associate a flexible service with a personalized service, but it is not the same! There is a fundamental difference that will change the way you manage your service. Understanding it will allow you to have flexible services, which adapt to the changing needs of your clients, and personalized services, tailor-made for each of your clients that requires it.
We will analyze each of these concepts with an example.
What is a flexible service?
A flexible service adapts to the changing needs of your clients. It is essential to remove rigidity from your offer to always satisfy your customers. Because your market is dynamic, the needs of your customers change from day to day, and you must adapt.
The flexibility of the service is achieved by paying attention to your customers, their needs at all times, an exercise that you must perform continuously and through each contact with them. This will allow you to print timely changes to your service offer, which will please your customers, and will make them feel that you have them in mind.
I give you an example referring to my own service. I send all my subscribers a weekly newsletter by email, where an article, news, event invitations, etc. arrive.
We are getting closer to the end of the year festivities. It is a period in which we normally receive a flood of emails with offers, promotions, etc. So, I have decided to make my newsletter service more flexible, making it much shorter. In this way, my readers can access the same information, but spending less time reading my messages. Today they need brevity. My service is flexible to your changing needs.
Also the flexibility of the service is achieved by leaving some mobile variables. This is especially useful when customers ask for “some personalization”, expressing particular needs, but which are often repeated in certain groups of consumers.
It would be the case of having, in a restaurant, options for people with celiac disease, or hypertensive people, etc. In my case, it could be that some readers only want to receive emails when there is an upcoming webinar, and not every week.
To have this type of flexibility, you must have a service system that is not rigid, that allows you to adapt, and analyze these particular needs of some groups of your customers.
What is a personalized service?
A while ago, a customer asked me how to do when customers ask for customization, and there is a standard service. Is it possible to combine both things?
Standard services allow you to increase efficiency and serve many customers with a system that allows you to cover a large volume, and reduce costs. Standardization allows the service to be brought closer to customers.
However, some customers require customization. If the flexibility of which I spoke in the previous point is not enough to satisfy them, they need a personalized service. But here is the big difference. A personalized service is originally designed to serve a client with all its peculiarities.
This difference is "the big difference". A personalized service is of high value. And because its design is conceived that way, this is reflected in the price.
Continuing with the previous example, just this week I have opened new places for my VIP coaching service. This is a personalized service, because I adapt my help and the information I give to the particular needs of my clients. I analyze their situation, their needs, and I offer help exclusively aimed at each client in particular. My communication is 1 to 1 with that client, there are no massive messages. It is 100% personal.
My newsletters are a free service, and today they are delivered to more than 2,800 people. Can you imagine if I had to write a personal message to each of them? It would be impossible!
Do you serve your clients better with a flexible service or with a personalized service?
The key to differentiating flexibility of customization, and choosing an option for your offer is in the needs of your customers.
If you have understood the difference between these two attributes of the service, you will see that there is no one better than the other. Both can serve your clients excellently. The key is to figure out your needs.
In the example above, a customer looking for quality service information will find that my weekly newsletter fits perfectly. It does not need to be personalized. Rather, he prefers that it be free, because he is in a stage of rapprochement, to inform himself on the subject.
Perhaps the time will come when you are determined to make changes to your service, and need personalized help. This is the time of the coaching service. Here you need not only information, but help to implement changes, to overcome difficulties, to install systems that adapt to your requirements.
It will not reach you with the information that thousands of readers receive, with an incalculable variety of needs; now you need customization. And you will be willing to pay for such a service, because the result warrants it.
And in your organization, do they offer flexible services? And personalized services? I recommend that you have both, to serve the different needs of your customers.
