The Definition of Exceptional Customer Service - By: Kate Tammemagi

A clear definition of exceptional Customer service is important for any business. When is a Customer service experience exceptional, when is it BAD and when is it good, but NOT exceptional? Everyone knows that Customer satisfaction and keeping the Customer happy is important. To many people in business, however, these maxims are very vague and not clearly defined. A business, large or small, that is fuzzy in its approach to Customer Service, will have only a very small chance of achieving success.

If you know what success is, and why it is important, then you have a much higher chance of succeeding, and delivering an exceptional Customer service experience is no different! Your staff will be focussed in the right direction, and their efforts to achieve exceptional Customer service will be recognised and reinforced.

Three Types of Customer Service Experience
The first step in looking for a definition of exceptional Customer Service is to identify why this is so important. Frederick Reicheld, in his book The Loyalty Effect, first identified the importance of Customer loyalty, saying that this is the ONLY way to achieve real business success. To succeed in business, you must retain more Customers than your opposition. He recognised that the best of the best companies had higher Customer retention than their competitors, they knew HOW to keep their Customers and they worked continuously to improve at building loyalty.

He identified three types of Customer service experience -
1. The negative experience, where expectations were not met
2. The perfect experience, where expectations were fully met
3. The exceptional experience, where expectations were fully met and something special was added

In terms of retention, the negative experience will send Customers on their way to the opposition. That was obvious, and not a surprising finding. What was new, however, was that a perfect experience, expectations totally met, would not KEEP Customers coming back. Perfection is a very forgettable experience. To have high retention, you need perfection plus the exceptional Customer Service experience, perfection plus the extra 10. The extra experience must be unexpected, over and above what would be the normal experience. On the product or task side, this might be -

Two for the price of one
- Two for the price of one
- A relevant free offer with the productOffering extra information that is of value to the Customer
- Going the extra mile

On the people side, it is offering an experience that is both personal and appropriate. It might be -

- Remembering the person from a previous visit and referring to this
- Making a check-in call to follow up
- Keeping a record of the Customer's likes and needs - and using this to anticipate needs

Opportunities to deliver the extra 10% are very specific to your line of work. If you LOOK for them, you will find them. They are like rabbits, get the first two, and pretty soon you will have loads! You are looking for that added extra. Get your Team to identify these on a regular basis -
1. What will trigger a negative Customer Experience?
2. What will make up a perfect experience?
3. What is the extra, unexpected experience?

About the Author

Kate Tammemagi provides Management Training and Customer Care Training Courses in all types of businesses.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Kate-Tammemagi/57937

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