Barrie Hopson & Mike Seally

Success will come in our competitive world to those who recognize that:

• the customer is the business's biggest asset
• the customer pays all salaries, wages and dividends
• the customer will go where he/she receives the best attention
• you must be your customer's best choice

Good Service: Giving customers a little more than they expect.

We don't know what good service is - until we don't get it!

Ask: what do our customer want?

Then manage, plan, organise, train and work to give the customers what they want and a little bit more

Approach to service revolution

• commitment from the top
• the company vision
• customer research
• Training
• Follow-through

Step1: Decide on your core business

We can be one of the best or one of the rest.

"One of the most important things an organization can do is to determine what business it is in"- Peter Drucker

The future belongs to people who see possibilities before they become obvious - Theodore Levitt

Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.

How do you decide what is your core business

• ask yourself
• ask your colleagues
• ask your bosses
• ask your staff
• ask your customers
• ask your competitors

Do you do anything to make your regular customers feel special?

What more could you do?

Step2: Know your customers - and your competitors.

The only real measure of business success is a satisfied customer, all else is a distraction.

Everyone in an organization has customers

Good service is not smiling at the customer but getting the customer to smile at you.

Customise, don't standardize.

Business is a lot like tennis - those who don't server will end up losing.

Is everything connected with your business able to take initiatives on the customers' behalf?

Step 3: Create your vision

The best vision is within sight but just out of reach

Vision takes you from the past and commits you to the future

A vision is where you are going; a plan is how you get there.

Do you always really listen to the customers and treat her/him as an individual

Step 4: Define your moments of truth

Excellent service is ENJOYING giving people a little more than they expect.

Marketing can catch the customers, service quality keeps them.

Make it easy for your customers to do business with you

Whenever you meet a customer you ARE the company

A little more goes a long way!

Are you always looking for ways of improving the product?

Step 5: Give Good Service to one another

If you are not serving a customer, you will be serving somebody who is!

Human beings pass on the kind of treatment they get.

The quality of service that reaches the customers begins with the quality of service the staff give each other.

Take care of your staff and they will take care of your customer.

Step 6: Create the customer's experience

People cannot read your intentions, only your behavior

People skills

• making people feel special
• managing the first 4 and last 2 minutes
• demonstrating a positive attitude
• communicating clear messages
• showing high energy
• working well under pressure

Treat us as people, as individuals, don't just process us!

Your customer will get better when you do.

When you're serving a customer you're on stage; are you dressed for the part? Do you know your lines? Do you understand the play?

You never get a later chance to make a last impression.

Service is like love…, it is not the word that matters it’s the action!

If you don't genuinely like your customers, the chances are they won't buy.

There is no such as an insignificant improvement - Tom Peters

Excellent Service is not about being 1000% better at one thing but 1% better at a thousand things

Step 7: Profit from Complaints

You don't have to be ill to get better.

Complaints can be the educators of your business.

Your biggest problem will be unearthing them.

Nobody ever wins an argument with a customer.

When you make improvements to your product do you let your customers know?

How much 'internal marketing' goes on in your business?

Is as much effort put into informing staff as it is to informing customers.

Step 8: Stay close to your customers

Do we make it easy for our customers to do business with us?

Today, sales people are still selling products while customers want to buy relationships.

Remember - the best way to sell products is to help the customer solve problems.

You shouldn't aim to satisfy customers but to delight them.

Step 9: Design and implement the Service programme

If your failure rate is one in a million, what do you tell your customer?

What gets measured and what gets rewarded, is what gets done! Make sure you are measuring and rewarding quality and service.

Step 10: Set Service Standards

Quality is remembers long after price is forgotten.

Step 11: Recognize and Reward Service Excellence

Since every job in the business is a service job, each job holder should be able to

• identify his or her customer
• state the service they provide
• list the ways in which that service could be enhanced
• declare the performance criteria by which service success can be judged.

Until you can write down the standards of technical and personal performance which will please your customer then you may not achieve them. Individuals and departments need to know exactly what is expected of them.

Step 12: Develop the Service programme.

A satisfied customer is a living, walking advertisement for your business.

This year's little bit more is next year's norm.