Opinion: 10 steps to provide consistent all-star service

If a company wants to win customers’ hearts and minds, they need to deliver excellent customer service. That means providing more than cookie-cutter customer experiences people can get from any number of competitors.

The frequency of customer experiences I encounter from employees delivering monotonous, even apathetic, service levels is surprising. What’s more interesting, perhaps, is how quickly it grabs my attention when an employee provides outstanding service. A high-caring experience breaks the norm and stands out from the sea of sameness service experiences.

Recently, I had an all-star service encounter at a local convenience store. As soon as I entered, I was greeted energetically by a young man stationed behind the register, “Hello, sir,” he said pleasantly. When I laid my items on the counter a few moments later, he made an effort to create some small talk about the weather. His attitude was upbeat and cheerful. He thanked me for my business and told me to have a “great day” as I left. Impressive!

Excellent service experiences aren’t the norm, however. Studies for decades have shown that employee indifference remains the most common reason customers take their business elsewhere.

Achieving consistent all-star service isn’t easy, but it’s doable with an approach that concentrates on improving your company’s culture. Here are 10 ways I’ve seen clients with successful brands weave all-star service into their culture.

1. Scrutinize all service procedures or processes. Ask, “Does this improve the customer’s experience?” If it doesn’t, drop it or tweak it until it will.

2. Have high service standards. Your standards must be clear and consistently reinforced throughout the organization. People long for clarity and predictability.

3. Accountability must be consistent. Standards are the foundation for guiding employee behaviors, but this requires that you talk with employees when they don’t uphold expectations. One way to instill accountability is to include service standards on performance appraisals.

4. Reinforce service standards frequently. Repetition will help managers and employees accept the importance of service standards in their customer interactions, accelerate individual behavior change and produce a more consistent customer experience.

5. Recognize employees for meeting or exceeding the organization’s standards. Praise and acknowledgment should characterize management’s feedback.

6. Include service standards in your customer experience strategy. In my experience, leaders need a formalized customer experience strategy that incorporates service standards to increase customer acquisition, retention and wallet share.

7. Place high expectations for managers and leaders to be role models. Leaders don’t just communicate the standards to employees; they are the standards. Employee commitment strengthens when they see management living and breathing service values.

8. Get employees acting in a way that creates a frictionless experience for the customer. Customers don’t have the time or patience to go through hassles to get what they want. Simple gestures can go a long way, such as getting it for them or taking them to it and calling them back with an update before they have to ask for it.

9. Don’t turn service standards into another company program or annual theme. New programs come and go, annual themes start and stop and, consequently, employees won’t take it seriously if you promote standards like you might a new training program.

10. Use valid measures of service. I’ve seen opinion polls and surveys that paid people to leave high scores online, coerced ratings from friends or family, or asked customers to score them perfectly. False measures aren’t helpful if you want to produce ongoing improvement to your customer’s experience through service standards. Use valid data.

It’s the leader’s job to get employees producing positive results for customers consistently. Infusing the culture with clear service standards is one of the first steps to delivering all-star service and creating differentiated customer experiences that earn increased business.

Consultant, professional speaker and author Mark Holmes is president of Consultant Board Inc. and MarkHolmesGroup.com. He can be reached at mark@markholmesgroup.com.