Companies seeking excellence in customer service must be closely aligned throughout their structure to achieve this goal. They will not succeed with some actions sprinkled here and there, but is the result of a well conceived and articulated plan to implement a culture of service.
One of the keys to achieving quality service is to soak up all the members of the organization of values consistent with that goal. Do not you think that this is what is often lacking in certain organizations, and even is disparate within the same company, with customer-oriented sectors, and others that do not acknowledge receipt of this value?
Let's see why this occurs and what you can do about it.
The concept of "distance from the customer" can give us some indication and explain this phenomenon.
In the book "The Service Compass" it says:
It is very likely that the values of a service company, such as a hotel, are strongly oriented towards customer satisfaction, as the basis of a long-term relationship. While in an industrial company, as the distance from the customer is greater, direct orientation to economic results is more feasible.
So, if we follow this reasoning, we see that the sectors related to sales, customer service, marketing, naturally bid for customer interests, that is, they live more naturally a culture of service.
It is logical, since serving happy customers is much more pleasant than dealing with obfuscated customers. And therefore, in the internal relations with other sectors, they are those who intercede on behalf of clients.
But, what happens to the sectors that are "inward"? Since their distance from the customer is greater, the service culture is not as internalized as the culture of efficiency and orientation to internal processes. And here there is the bidding and the tensions that do not lead to success.
What then to do to improve this situation? Well, since the problem may be distance from the customer, a good decision is to bring those sectors closer to the customer. Here are some ideas to suggest:
- Raise awareness, in the "internal" sectors, of the impact of their actions on customers. This can be achieved with process diagrams, where they see, in the succession of steps in which they are involved, that what they do has as its final destination something of value to the client. Another activity of great value is to involve them in the resolution of Customer complaints. For example, if there was a complaint about delivery delays, meet all the sectors of the value chain, to analyze together the times assigned to each one and how they could ensure in the future the absence of delays. For this, we must start with caution, eradicating the idea of "looking for culprits" and installing the idea of "looking for solutions", and tearing down barriers and rivalries between sectors.It is also useful to link the efficiency of each sector and the overall economic result to customer satisfaction. From highlighting the costs of an unsatisfied customer (for example, staff time to solve their problem, compensations that must be made to the customer for poor service, etc.), to giving an economic value to customer loyalty, showing what is the cost of generating a new customer, versus the cost of serving regular customers.versus serving regular customers.versus serving regular customers.
These are just some ideas that lead to spreading in the sectors less involved with the customer the service culture that costs so much and is so necessary to finally find themselves bidding in one direction.
