| Your customers are 'Your Business', without them you | | | | used: |
| essentially have no business. | | | | - Surveys, questionnaires, objective testing |
| I am going to instruct you in how to fine-tune your | | | | - First hand observations |
| customer service using a technologist's approach, | | | | - Auditing and analysis |
| which will enable you dramatically improve your | | | | - Interviews |
| customer satisfaction ratings, gain a continuous stream | | | | - Records of unsolicited reports of problems and |
| of referrals, and encourage life-time loyalty from your | | | | complaints |
| clients and customers. | | | | From this information it should become clear what |
| Before I begin, ask yourself the following questions; | | | | service performance impediments exist. |
| Do you know what your customers really think about | | | | Stage Two. |
| your current level of service? | | | | The next step is to then acknowledge and address |
| Are they impressed, highly satisfied and fiercely loyal | | | | the source of underperformance. |
| to you and your brand? | | | | The following questions will enable you to determine |
| What would make them want to remain a life time | | | | and act upon the second stage of the customer |
| customer of yours and continuously refer others to | | | | service improvement process, addressing the source |
| you? | | | | of under-performance. |
| If you cannot answer these three important questions | | | | Based on the collated research from stage one, |
| with complete conviction and precision, then consider | | | | identifying performance impediments, ask the following |
| there is an immediate pressing opportunity to | | | | important questions: |
| significantly improve your overall customer service | | | | |
| performance, and standards. | | | | 1. What are service staff doing, or not doing, to cause |
| Improving your service standards must start with | | | | the identified problem? |
| making an un-wavering commitment to 'excellence in | | | | 2. What are service staff unable to do that they |
| customer service'. With an organisationally driven vision | | | | should be able to do? |
| of 'excellence in service' you and your team will | | | | Stage Three. |
| become empowered and constantly motivated to | | | | The third step to improving your customer service |
| champion and commit 100% to driving a improved | | | | standards is to establish what your desirable |
| performance level of service throughout your | | | | performance outputs are, what the benefits are going |
| organisation and daily operations. | | | | to be for your customers, and how you intend on |
| A technologist's approach to customer service | | | | measuring the successful achievement of these |
| improvement focuses on three critical stages: | | | | outcomes. |
| | | | A simple approach to doing this is to draw up a table |
| 1. identifying performance impediments | | | | detailing a list of service tasks, desirable outputs, and |
| 2. addressing the source of under-performance | | | | benchmarks, standards or benefits that occur as a |
| 3. establishing desirable performance outputs, benefits | | | | result to the task being performed. Refer example 1 |
| and measures | | | | below. |
| Stage One. | | | | Task Output Benchmark, Standard, Benefit |
| To identify existing performance impediments to | | | | Answering Telephone Handling Inbound Customer |
| customer service in your organisation, you first need to | | | | Enquiries Answer within 3 rings |
| learn all you can about 'what's really going on' with your | | | | Be polite courteous and helpful |
| service delivery. | | | | Identify the customers need |
| To collect this information the following tools can be | | | | Deliver a service to meet the customers need. |