Can there be such a thing as a self sustaining service culture?

There are many truths in the commercial world but few more central to observed organisational behaviour than the view that

“What the boss believes is important is important!”

So if the boss believes that something, in this case service quality, is important does that mean that the organisation will automatically achieve standards of excellence in service quality delivery and all their customers will be rendered sockless by their experiences? Unfortunately there is no such guarantee attached to the packaging of a belief but it does mean that the organisation has a much greater chance of success than if the boss treats the issue with an air of supreme indifference.

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The International Customer Service Institute is running a regular Q&A session with internationally recognised service quality experts. These sessions will be periodically published on the TICSI site in the Learning Section and the objective is to share knowledge, ideas and opinions on international best practice. Please feel free to contact the Institute should you be interested in participating and we would be delighted if you would share your opinion with us on the blog.

To keep up with our Q&A sessions please sign up for the TICSI newsletter or visit our Learning Section.

The International Customer Service Institute will run a regular Q&A session with internationally recognised service quality experts. The first of this series is with Kate Dickens, who has over 17 years experience in service quality and business excellence, and has just completed her second book on Service Excellence.

When we hear the term Service Excellence do we really understand how this differs from good customer service? What are the transitory steps an organisation must undertake before they can deliver Service Excellence? Visit our Learning Section and discover what Kate had to say when interviewed by TICSI on the subject.

Click for full interview with Kate Dickens

Shilpa Asnani
Service Quality Executive
The International Customer Service Institute

There was a time when not very long ago when it was usual to be greeted in a retail outlet with words like

Good morning sir/madam how can I help you today?

This clearly implied that the greeter recognised the importance of the occasion, had reasonable manners and was willing to put themselves and their expertise at the disposal of the potential customer in helping them to arrive at satisfactory conclusion of their needs, and is above all an open ended question likely to create a response which engages the customer and the retailer.

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This is the first of a regular series of blogs written to shine some light into some of the dark corners where both poor and good service is hindering or helping the customer and thereby damaging or improving the performance of the organisation. Much will be founded on the basis of personal experience and it would be good to uncover whether these observations are widely shared. So if they strike a chord with you please let us know.

Buttons, Messages and Music - It isn’t working!

It seems impossible to call any organisation on the telephone without being first of all told via a recorded, usually female, voice that

“Your call may be monitored for quality and service training purposes”

or words to that effect.

A decade or so ago those of us aware of the importance of service quality and interested in its continual improvement were heartened initially by the emergence of this activity, for here was a genuine source for researching the customer’s experience at their interface with the organisation to provide a deeper understanding of the needs of the customer and the competence of the staff in fulfilling such needs.

So after 10 years of listening to these messages the message back to them is…

IT ISN’T WORKING!

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