Cordiality (giving with the heart) is one of the distinctive skills on which companies can develop a true competitive advantage to differentiate themselves in cases where it is difficult to do so due to the price or quality of the basic product or service. Although it can also mean expanding its differentiating capacity in these cases.
The endless story
Much has been said and written about strategies to attract and retain customers.
Companies invest a lot of time, effort and money in these marketing activities.
Even so we can all write a vast list of bad experiences in opportunity to receive services from organizations and people who should provide it.
And as much as we ask ourselves, when will they learn to take care of their clients? It seems that those responsible for providing it are so busy in their own interests that they cannot realize that this is the main reason why they lose clients.
As clients we have an amazing capacity for tolerance towards companies and service providers. We hide behind our resistance to change, in the lack of time to evaluate other alternatives, we laugh at the "don't ask the elm for pears" and we even appeal to the famous adage "better known bad…", and many other excuses to continue buying from those who make us suffer their bad services.
Clients are to blame for this poor quality of service. We do not help improve our suppliers. We do not demand growth in quality. And many times we abandon them without knowing the reason (which perhaps they will never find out) already exhausted to tolerate even the intolerable, and here we include disrespect, demonstrations of absolute disinterest and not only the lack of courtesy or kindness that we no longer even claim to those responsible for providing us with a service.
We have become so accustomed to the lack of personal contribution of human quality in the service that we have even lowered our expectations of receiving it when we did not avoid it, inclining to self-services and shops where the human factor responsible for completing the service production process was eliminated (servuction). Sometimes we are surprised to receive it as if it were not normal.
Too bad…
To be consistent with this title, we can say that fortunately this service crisis is not the exclusive patrimony of Argentines. Some time ago we accessed the results of a worldwide survey of various companies in different economic sectors, which showed the following percentages of reasons for losing customers:
- 1% Death3% Moving5% Friend (s) of other (s) 9% Competitive price14% Product quality68% indifference and routine care
More than two thirds of the total number of customers we lose are due to a problem that has nothing to do with the quality of our product or its price.
Most of the clients we lose them for lack of demonstration of interest and commitment to their needs, desires and interests. And this is applicable to services, final consumer and industrial products.
And the most absurd thing is that they are reasons that normally do not represent costs or monetary expenditures for the company. Working on these aspects means expanding the perception of benefits "without" sacrifices and stop reducing prices and increasing production costs with physical advantages, which is what paradigmatically all competitors do.
The magic of good service
We could also write a wide detail of good experiences (perhaps the list is smaller) of companies and people who made an extra effort to satisfy our needs and provide us with excellent service.
Good service is what broadens the customer's perception of quality of a certain base product or service. And sometimes it can even justify a higher price or a lower quality of the product or service purchased.
As this added value increases the level of customer perception, it generates a higher level of satisfaction and increases their loyalty.
The level of Satisfaction of a client is measured by what he perceives regarding his expectations (S = PE). And in this aspect the attitude of the "server" can add or remove value to the proposal.
How are we at home?
So far we share, with a critical vision, the aspect of service quality, from the customer's point of view.
This crisis of service could lead us to think about how bad things are going. Or how clear this opportunity is to stand out above the average.
We should ask ourselves some questions:
- How do we treat our customers in our company? What can our customers say about our quality of service? Is the quality of customer service a heritage of our company's personality?
It is hard to think or, even more so, to accept that Quality of Service, perhaps, is not the competitive advantage that highlights our organization.
Recognizing this possibility is a profound demonstration of professional humility, and the beginning of a possible solution.
Differentiation by quality of service starts from a strategic decision and must involve all the members of the organization. Commitment to service quality must be part of the company's philosophy and the example of number one is the key to its implementation.
Background indicators to improve quality of service
Regardless of the quality of the physical product or the servuction process, which must be formalized by written rules and procedures, the people who make up the organization make up and complete the "expanded product" and in this regard the personal contribution of each member of their organization. team plays a fundamental role.
Clients globally perceive the solution to their needs that the organization provides and rationally and emotionally evaluate their productive effectiveness.
In order for an organization to provide an excellent service, it must be made up of people of excellence, including its number one, who is responsible for generating that atmosphere of excellence and commitment to quality. Here are some indicators that can help you in creating the right conditions to enhance this distinctive capacity in your organization:
Service vocation:
The quality of being relational is embedded in our nature. We relate to others out of necessity. In this interrelation, people's values are tested, especially their generosity or selfishness. It is a vocation that only the bad conditions of our personality could destroy or even annihilate. And a human being without the capacity to serve others cannot succeed in any discipline that requires human interactions.
The true professional is one who permanently nurtures and cultivates his vocation of service, who spares no effort to help his client. And this attitude transports her to the whole scope of her life, with her family, her friends, colleagues and even with strangers, because she knows that her actions not only affect others but also directly impact her capacity to develop or reduce it.
One of the most important social commitments of the entrepreneur is to facilitate his collaborators the enrichment of their service capacity, and the development of this innate vocation in human beings, which, in short, implies the development of human virtues and personal self-realization.
Personality
Companies have the personality that gives them their maximum reference.
We transmit our own personality to all our collaborators and the result of their task translates into what the client perceives as "the image" of the company. The corporate image is nothing other than the global product perceived by the customer.
Human beings have a set of strengths and weaknesses. There are no extremes in their pure degrees. Yes, there are people who try to lean towards one of them.
As the human being is the same person in the different situations of his life, improving his personality will be a permanent task in all areas: with his family, children, friends, coworkers, clients, etc.
Throughout the day there are many occasions to be arrogant, selfish, pessimistic, negative and unpleasant. It costs the same and yields better fruits, making every moment the small effort to be more: Humble, Generous, Positive, Optimistic and Pleasant. In other words, becoming people with whom others like to be.
The litmus test for a "server" is to assess their degree of satisfaction with being in contact with people.
You cannot succeed in providing services who do not enjoy their relationship with customers.
Transforming our company into an environment where customers feel comfortable should be part of the entrepreneur's mission. Generating the right climate to develop a service personality is essential so that each member can transform into a human being who contributes values to society… to customers… and to himself.
Motivations
Motivation is the inner drive that provides strength to try to achieve those ends or objectives, that is, what pushes to act. Motive is the motive of the acts, the objective that attracts.
People always act to achieve ends or objectives that they consider good or desirable for them. We identify three types of motivations:
a) Extrinsic: They are motivations that satisfy remuneration needs and recognition of good performance in the task performed.
b) Intrinsic: It is the effect that our actions have on ourselves. We need to enrich our personality and grow professionally through our actions. And the workplace must facilitate this process.
c) Transcendental: It is a type of need higher than the previous ones. The need to do good, the need to do something for others. This is a need that corresponds to human nature. We need to help others. It is not a right, it is a real need. The need to serve, to be useful, to transcend ourselves. Precisely the word "being-vir" (vir = man, human) refers directly to this natural condition of "being-human".
We must help satisfy these three levels of needs and motivations of our collaborators. Give meaning to the function of serving not as an obligation, but as a right prior to that of customers to receive the service.
conclusion
None of the mentioned aspects is easy and quick to implement. The task requires patience, perseverance, tolerance and good humor. It is about making people discover the values that are embedded in their human nature, empowering, motivating and managing them so that each of them yields their maximum potential.
It is the organization's number one function to transmit enthusiasm and fervor to its people to translate them into cordiality and affection for clients, knowing that this attitude helps them develop humanly and professionally, consequently producing a true corporate competitive advantage based on their Service attitude.
