Service Excellence is a provider’s ability to consistently meet, manage or even
surpass a client’s expectations.
We often hear organizations and business owners confirm the importance of good
customer service and sometimes even go all out to train their teams to achieve it,
for the gain and gratification that comes from it (regardless of how temporary) but
in reality, their steps and actions do not support a long-term lifestyle or culture.
This is because the steps they take are usually fast and easier ways for quick fixes
which never work on the long run. In essence, what we are doing is investing in
quick-fixes to long-term issues rather than building a culture of service excellence,
as a way of life and the modus operandi until it becomes what we breath, eat, drink
and sleep.
Most attempts at correcting the deficiency of service excellence often end with the
top hierarchy or business owners who determine the success of the organization,
sending their subordinates for training when really and truly the culture of service
excellence rests with them and must start with them, if it really has to be effective.
The absence of the service excellence culture is the beginning of the downfall of
any businesses, no matter how seemingly profiting the idea may be.
We lose touch with reality when we forget to note that key on a customer’s priority
list isn’t our in-house or back office procedures but rather our ability to notice
them, serve them and ensure that we strive to meet all their needs, leaving them
with little or no choice to part with their money at the end of the transaction and
actually do it with joy and desire to repeat their patronage. The excellence of our
service is what the client is really after. If the culture hasn’t been imbibed, the
likelihood of satisfying the client a second or third time is far-fetched.
The general notion out there is that good customer service means little or no
complaints but as service excellence experts we can confidently confirm that it
goes way beyond that. How we respond to the complaints received and the
strategic steps we take to resolve them actually matter more. Beyond exceeding the
customers’ expectations, it is paramount to deliver on your promises and ensure all
queries and issues raised are appropriately dealt with and adequately addressed.
Can it be said of your organization or business that you are easy to do business
with? If your answer is NO! then let’s pay the drawing board a quick visit.
Developing, building and promoting a culture of service excellence begins and
ends with the decision makers of the organization or owner(s) of the business.
Without a culture of service excellence, degradation and consistent failure of the
business is inevitable. The lack of a service excellence culture is the reason many
businesses fail and organizations/conglomerates fall apart and never grow beyond
a certain level or survive beyond their toddler stage(s).
When it comes to service excellence unfortunately there are no quick fixes, you
either painstakingly build the culture or repeatedly revolve around the ‘fire-hire-
train’ cycle until you catch the dizzy spell and fall flat to the ground. A service
excellence culture requires years of strategic development (from scratch),
continuous building and deliberate grooming with the core essence infused into its
blood stream of the system until the new culture becomes the norm.
Remember, you are working with people who are set in their ways from over the
years, so a training session or two regardless of its intensity is rarely ever enough
for that desired turn-around that will last a life time.
The old proverb may say, ‘If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ but in this case, let’s just say ‘If it ain’t broke, break it
and then fix it’ Grass root/foundational transformation is actually what is
required to attain that height of service excellence that attracts weighty, consistent
and immeasurable profitability, rather than the façade that quick fixes present.
They are short-lived and deplete over time, leaving you worse off than where you
started off.
As a wrap I would say, ‘invest in a strategic process of continuous schooling’,
seeing that the reality of what we are faced with is a lifestyle of mediocrity, that has
become the norm over time and cannot be changed instantly with quick fix
mechanisms. It takes time, it takes pain, it requires investment. If you desire it that
much, then be prepared to go the distance to; Create it! Develop it! Build it and
Groom it!
Cresta Durojaiye