Eight Questions To Help Instill Customer Service Consistency In Your Business
Do your customers interact with different employees when they do business with you? Do you have different offices, territories, or locations? Is your feedback pointing to a consistent customer experience no matter who your customers interact with?
Our word of the day is “consistency.” When you are a customer don’t you expect a certain “range” of consistency when you do business with someone? If the company’s actions fall below your range of expectations, then you are disappointed. You may slow down or stop your dealings with that company altogether.
If the company responds to you with actions that either meet or exceed your expectations, most likely you’ll do business with them again. If they really exceed your expectations, you may start positive word of mouth advertising about them.
But the bottom line is, you want a consistent customer service experience. When it’s not consistent, you want the reason to be because that company exceeded your expectations, not because they fell short.
How do you ensure that all of your employees are delivering consistent positive customer service experiences? Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you continually communicate your customer service vision to your employees?
- Do you back that up with training and other resources to help them be successful?
- Do you hold your employees accountable for consistent actions that result in excellent customer service?
- Do you consider your employees to be more important than your customers? (This is not a trick question. Ask Southwest Airlines and they’ll tell you that “Happy employees create happy customers.)
- Do you reward and recognize those employees that consistently go above and beyond the call of duty?
- Have you reviewed your policies and procedures to ensure that your customers come first?
- Do you offer the same quality of products and services throughout your business? (For example, a Coke tastes the same in Seattle and Miami.)
- Do you regularly ask your employees for feedback on how to maintain and improve upon the consistency you offer your customers?
When an individual continually demonstrates consistency in his or her actions, we say that person is dependable, trustworthy, and reliable, just to name a few. If you want your business to be seen by the public as dependable, trustworthy, and reliable, then you and your employees need to ensure a consistent experience every day at every location by every employee.
Regards,
Glenn
