After a long, arduous and humbling recession, it’s fair to assume that organisations seem to have finally learned that customer retention is interwoven into the very fabric of an organisation’s success. No longer can organisations invest vast sums in customer acquisition and expect to maintain healthy profits. If the recession has taught us one thing, let it be that excellent customer service is the keystone in the longevity of a fruitful organisational existence.

As with the business environment, customer expectations are constantly changing and evolving. If you sit back and enjoy the fruits of your hard work – your business will die a slow death. The fatal mistake in customer service is to disregard the changing circumstances that are brought about by our customers every day.

Below are ten steps to help your oganisation go from standing-still to Sustainable Customer Service Improvement:

1. Like every good plan, sustainable customer service improvement starts with a Vision - In order to reach your goals you should be able see them clearly.  Add sustainable customer service improvement into your vision - the ultimate goal is to constantly strive to exceed customer expectations.

2. Focus your organisational strategies on sustainable customer service improvement - Modify not only your vision, but align your policies and strategies so they are focused on continuous customer service improvement.

3.Commitment from Top Management - Commitment at boardroom level is essential for reaching your vision; building excellent customer service starts here and permeates throughout the organisational structure.

4. Employee Commitment – Employee participation is a crucial element in sustained customer service improvement. This is more often than not, the undoing of a great customer service strategy. Your employees are the ones who are going to put the mighty vision in practice.

5. Staff Empowerment - To create highly motivated and responsible staff, organisations must be prepared to give employees the power to make real-time decisions when dealing with customers. Customer complaints need to be dealt with efficiently and effectively. If your employee comes running to you every time there’s a problem, you’re losing customers.

6. Develop an employee feedback system – Your employees stand on the front line every day, ask them for feedback and you will see the benefits, immediately.  You can save a fortune on consultation and market research fees by simply asking your staff to give their feedback, suggestions and ideas.  A vast majority of organisations put their employees in a box by limiting them to a list of well-defined tasks, which does not endear itself to their development as an individual.

7. Develop a measurement system - "If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it" — Lord Kelvin. Examples of measurement include:

• Market analysis – gain insight of current market and industry trends.
• Competitor analysis – comprehensive analysis into the organisations you compete with.
• Customer profiling – understand the needs and expectations of your customers.
• Customer satisfaction measurement – to understand not only what makes the customer satisfied but how satisfied they actually are.
• Customer feedback system - develop a mechanism that allows you to capture complaints coming from your customers
• Mystery shopping – gather detailed data on not only your current customer service performance, but the customer service performance of your competitors too.
• Employee satisfaction surveys – ensure your employees are motivated enough to deliver good service to your customers
• Internal process audit – review internal processes and make sure your company is delivering on every process
• Customer Service Self Assessment – ensure you know where you stand in terms of customer service excellence and what areas need improvement. Self assess your customer service performance regularly. Use TICSI's free online customer service self assessment tool for this.
• Benchmarking – learn from the best and share best practices

8. Appoint a “Change Agent” - this is a point of contact and will be personally responsible for the implementation of customer service changes. A “change agent” can be a dedicated manager or team. A “change agent” should be empowered enough to facilitate change throughout the organisation, from the very top to the very bottom.

9. Develop and stick to ground rules - make it clear to all staff and partners so that everyone understands the implications of not adhering to company policies. Without clearly stated and communicated rules it is impossible to conduct changes and encourage sustainable improvement in any areas.

10. Don’t do it alone - Join other groups with the same interest and objectives. Encourage each other’s thinking, motivate each other during a downturn, learn from each other, and compete with each other.

Ultimately, you will use different skills, experiences, motivations, competencies, knowledge, ideas, and best practices. Try tested procedures, advice, suggestions and alternative, if not radical, ways of thinking in pursuing sustainable customer service. Seek out and join forums, blogs, listen to industry experts, participate in conferences, training courses, networking events. Why not strive for customer service certification or any other kind of recognition from local CS groups, etc.

And finally, Don’t Stop Moving Forward - Don’t commit the fatal mistake of standing still, do not stop moving forward - there is always room for improvement!

Vanda Vereb
Service Quality Executive 
The International Customer Service Institute