How to Create a Superior Customer Service Strategy Part 1 – Decide What You Want

Many times organizations talk about wanting to improve their service delivery and then fall short on executing it. A close scrutiny into the cause of their failure exposes their shortcomings in coming up with a viable simple strategy to carry it out. In this three part series we are going to look into how to create a workable customer service strategy. The principles discussed here are based on an all-time customer service book by business authors Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles called Raving Fans. In it the authors discuss the principles of customer service based on what we call the 3D Approach to Customer Service Strategy – Decide, Discover and Deliver.

To those not familiar with the book let us first take a look at what the book talks about in a nutshell. Raving Fans is written in the guise of a simple parable. It relates the story of a new department manager on his first day of work. He is flatly told to fix the department's customer service problems A.S.A.P. or find a new job. Unsure of how to create happy customers, the department manager is suddenly presented with a fairy godfather, Charlie, who teaches him the secrets of how to fix his inadequate customer service.

Charlie explains that customer service is horrible in today's society. In fact, it is so bad that anything apart from truly horrendous service is accepted. Consumers can no longer conceptualize what good customer service is, much less come to expect it. So in this environment, those with truly exceptional service will excel. The basic theme is that we need to create not only satisfied customers, but raving fans—truly ecstatic customers.

So, how exactly do we create these raving fans? In this simple story, Charlie teaches us his three tenants of customer service: (1) Decide what you want, (2) Discover what your customer really wants, (3) Deliver, plus one percent. The department manager then goes back to work, applies Charlie's rules, becomes president of his company, and everyone lives happily ever after—in true fairy-tale format. 

Let us take a close look at each of those 3 tenants of customer service and see how it can be implemented in your organization right here in Zimbabwe. The first aspect is: Decide what you want. How do you decide what you want? This calls for the creation of the customer service vision of your business. You cannot create raving fans without knowing exactly what you want and where you are going. Basically, this is simply the clarity of ideas and the creation of a plan to administer your vision of perfection. 

Create a mental picture of the kind of customer service you want to offer. Visualize your employees delivering it and your customers receiving it. What would things be like? The joy, the jubilation, the delight in the faces of both employees and customers as your strategy works and yields results. Creation of a vision is a powerful tool which elicits feelings of exciting things to look forward to in you and your employees. Involve them in the creation of the vision because they are the ones that will help you in executing it. 

Ask your employees to come up with ideas of what it means to them to offer excellent customer service. Encourage them to briefly describe it and reward those who come up with the best ideas which can be implemented. Consolidate all their suggestions to come up with the best picture of what you want to do. Write down the vision and circulate it for everyone to critique and elicit their buy in and commitment. The next step is to come up with your customer service credo or pay off line. This is a powerful statement that describes what your commitment to delivering exceptional service. Involve your employees in this one as well. Ask them for suggestions and reward the one who comes up with the best statement. It has to be simple, easy to remember but powerful enough to inspire your employees. Think of world class organizations and their powerful statements. 

This process will light the fire in the belly of everyone in your organization as they can see and relate to what you want to do. Keep them excited about it. And move to the next stage where you discover what your customers want. We will examine what it entails in next week’s article.