It’s no coincidence that companies that deliver rockin' customer service are industry leaders and innovators. So why aren’t companies focusing on improving the service that they deliver?  It seems like this is a no-brainer; however, companies get too lazy, caught up in the day-to-day, and/or don’t want to invest the time and money on mandating a focus on service excellence. Don’t be one of these companies- it’s careless and brainless.  We want you to ROCK at customer service!

Still need some convincing about why customer service should be a top priority?  From a Salesforce blog post by Kendall Thorton, “18 Interesting Stats to Get You Rethinking Your Customer Service Process,” here are 8 powerful statistics that are very telling...

Validate customers' decisions.  Even if you do not agree with customers' choices, always validate their decisions.  If the vacuum salesperson was not able to make the sale, he could validate the customer's decision by saying, "I understand how you feel.  This brand is costly."

- Renee Evenson, Customer Service Training 101

Great service organizations know how to read their customers and respond.  Businesses who lose sight or misunderstand who their customers are, what they want, or what matters most to them, are at risk. Focused service organizations train their employees to notice customer body language, to observe the surroundings for all customer touch points, and how to REACT and RESPOND with informed knowledge. Holding employees accountable for this level of service is what makes the difference. "The secret to world-class service is knowing the true customer and aligning all participating resources and people with the value stream that leads to that customer." -John Murphy

In the grand scheme of things, service is service, right? Or is it? The degrees to which successful and unsuccessful service is delivered has varying effects on the outcomes. The service industry provides many levels of delivery outcomes. The range can be dramatic. For example: a rude cashier at the 7-11 is annoying while a rude floor nurse not focusing on details is far from annoying- the outcome of this lack of service can be life threatening. So the questions is, "Is it right to expect less from the cashier than we do the floor nurse with regards to service?" The universal answer has arrived at "yes," but perhaps therein lies the service mishaps. How can we develop consistencies in service expectations?  Let's take a look at three industries with separate service challenges, their insights, and comments to three questions. From their perspectives and expert opinions we should be able to gather some overall standards which should be applied across every employee role in every industry.

Lately, to my disappointment, I have not encountered near enough notable customer service exchanges. In fact, quite the opposite ~ until the other day! My daughter recently had surgery and her surgical pre-op nurse demonstrated service at it's finest. It was obvious that this person operates naturally from a place of compassion, but she was also textbook perfect with her service delivery ~ and in my world, with what I do for a living, I don't use that "perfect" word very often.