If more company presidents and their senior managers asked themselves this question with the customers’ view in mind, many would answer “probably not.” The reason? Customer service.
Much has been said, done and written about customer service during the last decade. Millions of dollars have been spent on programs, training and systems. However, the results have been disproportionate and often outright disappointing.
The fundamental problem is that most business leaders are not "pathological" about customer service and do not believe passionately in it as a key differentiator. One of my clients (a president who used the word "pathological" in his communications and speeches about customer service), was successful in making service excellence happen and royally reaped the commercial benefits. He did not just make the rational strategy case for it, but he lived it from his heart. Unfortunately, there are too few leaders like that. For many, the distance between head and heart is far greater than the typical 16 inches … and therein lies the root cause of customers' continuing disappointment with the service they receive.
The challenge for today's business leaders is to put their people front and center; to pursue short-term results while continuously aligning technology, work processes and structure around the people to enable them to become customer-focused in all aspects of operation. After all, a sharper customer focus means a sharper competitive edge.
There are two lessons in this:
1. More organizations need to think more and harder about the people factor in customer service
2. They must also pay fanatical attention to managing each customer touch point.
This is serious and hard work. Being "pathological" about customer service demands passion from leaders. They must be prepared to walk the talk, be patient, pay attention to customer detail and constantly work on people- and customer-focused alignments. Only then, when they have become "pathological" about customer service, will business leaders truly be able to say, "Everyone wants to do business with me."
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