Paul Dorrian’s latest book, Dancing with the Customer, provides 101 lessons for using customer service as a strategic tool to develop market supremacy. He shares some insights geared towards helping businesses that wish to expand market share and retain customer loyalty. Customer service is a term loosely bandied about. How do you define it? Many companies genuinely believe they give good customer service, but they do so on their own terms. We live in a service economy and people evaluate service by looking at their total experience with a particular organisation. That is why customer service needs to be applied holistically. Answering the phone in three rings, or having a 90% accuracy rate on deliveries is great, but not sufficient to ensure total service excellence. To be better than your opposition and create a level of service supremacy, you must inculcate a culture of service across the business. Customer service is not an add-on; it must form part and parcel of your operations from the ground up.
What is your view of customer service in South Africa?
We have pockets of excellence. Global companies with local representation, for example, tend to adhere to international best practices. The biggest customer service gap is at small and medium company levels, and in the business-to-business environment.
What do you mean by holistic customer service?
Customer service must be inherent in the way you set out an invoice, deal with a customer complaint, sell the product and store it in a warehouse. Service is a fundamental part of doing business. You have to apply the concept to every single facet of the organisation. If you are making a physical product, for example, the product must be manufactured in line with your customer service strategy – this shows respect for the customer from the very start.
What role do employees play?
Employees are under pressure to perform more than ever before. Stress-related depression is set to become the most widespread illness in the world. It’s the price of competitiveness and all businesses have to understand that employee welfare is a key element of customer service.
How do you develop a holistic customer service programme?
It begins with developing the right focus. Back this by ensuring that everyone has a positive attitude to the programme. Every person in the business needs to understand that service is perishable. Every time a customer comes into contact with any member of staff that interaction can never be repeated. The challenge is for every member of staff to understand that they are in a position to make a contribution to how the customer views the company.
For more information, contact Paul Dorrian on +27 33 386 2916, info@dorriangroup.com, or visit www.dorriangroup.com