The experts teach customer care

TheExpertsTeach:Customer
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The Experts Teach
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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Contents

Contents
Preface

7

1What Makes a Customer? by Nelson Scott

8

2Top 10 Worst Things to Say to Angry Customers by Jeff Mowatt

10

3Customer Service – The Disney Way by Martin Haworth

13

4Service With a Smile! by Bob Selden

15

5The View from the Front Line by Jim Clemmer

18

360°
thinking

.

6From Ichiban to Kaizen by Erica Rowntree
7Good Sticky vs Bad Sticky by Thomas Cox

20
23

8More is Said than Done about Improving Customer Service by Jim Clemmer

360°
thinking

.

25

360°
thinking

.

Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers

© Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.

Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers

Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.

© Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.

Discover the truth
4 at www.deloitte.ca/careers
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Dis


The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Contents

9How Powerful are Your Customers? by Bob Selden

27

10The ABC of Superior Customer Service by Eric Garner

31

11Customer Service v’s Customer Satisfaction – What’s the Difference?
by Bob Selden

33

12There Must Be 50 Ways to Leave Your Customer by George Torok

37

13Service is the Key to Survival in Today’s Climate by Bob Selden

40

14What Stops Dissatisfied Customers From Complaining? By Nelson Scott

43

15Buying Trends – the Shift to Hassle-Free by Jeff Mowatt

45

16Do You Know Who Your Customers Are? by Bob Selden

48

17The Unbeatable Laws of Customer Service by David Diamond

51

18Customer Satisfaction is a Reflection of Employee Satisfaction by Jim Clemmer 54

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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Contents

19Customer Relationship Management – System or Attitude? by Bob Selden

57

20America’s Favorite Retailers Have One Thing In Common –
Great Customer Service by Gregory P Smith

63

21The Icing on Your Customer Cake by Colin Crouch

66

22Secrets from David Copperfield by George Torok

68

2311 Ways to Get What You Want – Be a Clever Customer! by Martin Howarth

72

24Company Policies Can Frustrate Customers and Drive Them to Competitors
by Nelson Scott

75

25Connecting With Customers by Paul Lemberg

77

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The Experts Teach:
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Preface

Preface
Introduction to “The Experts Teach: Customer Care”
In each of “The Experts Teach” series, we’ve gathered together some of the world’s best thinkers to share
their ideas with you. Their ideas offer new, refreshing, and insightful ways to look at old themes, allowing
you to discover new perspectives, develop your understanding, and change the way you think.
Profile of Editor Eric Garner
Eric Garner is an experienced management trainer with a knack for bringing the best out of individuals
and teams. Eric founded ManageTrainLearn in 1995 as a corporate training company in the UK
specialising in the 20 skills that people need for professional and personal success today. Since 2002,
as part of KSA Training Ltd, ManageTrainLearn has been a major player in the e-learning market. Eric
has a simple mission: to turn ManageTrainLearn into the best company in the world for producing and
delivering quality online management products.
Profile of ManageTrainLearn
ManageTrainLearn is one of the top companies on the Internet for management training products,
materials, and resources. Products range from training course plans to online courses, manuals to
teambuilder exercises, mobile management apps to one-page skill summaries and a whole lot more.
Whether you’re a manager, trainer, or learner, you’ll find just what you need at ManageTrainLearn to
skyrocket your professional and personal success.

Acknowledgements
The authors of each article in this book have given permission for us to re-publish their work and bring

them to a wider audience. Unless it states to the contrary, the copyright of the article belongs to each
author. Each article concludes with a bio of the author and links to their website, if available. We also
publish their written reprint/republication permission with a link to the relevant web page, if available.
All such permissions are valid at time of publication. If these permissions have been amended or changed
without our knowledge, please email us at so that we can take appropriate
corrective action.

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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

What Makes a Customer? by Nelson Scott

1What Makes a Customer?
by Nelson Scott
Many of those who attend my seminars are resistant to the concept of customer service. Educators, health
care workers and many from both the public and private sectors feel they don’t need customer service
training, because they don’t serve “customers.” Customer service is something they associate with retail
businesses. As customers themselves, they wish that those who work in these businesses were better
trained to serve customers. But, they don’t see the need for it in their own organization.
To address this resistance, I created a formula that defines what a customer is. It demonstrates that no
matter what business we are in, we are in the business of serving customers.
C = P + N (e + p)
The customer (C) is a person (P) with a need (N) to be fulfilled. By defining customer this way, the
formula clarifies the relationship that exists between the person who requires a product or service and
those who supply that service.
Based on this understanding, teachers have parents and students as their customers. Nurses, dentists

and doctors have patients. Therapists, consultants and lawyers have clients. Performers and athletes
have fans. Civil servants have citizens or taxpayers. Hotels have guests, and transportation companies
have passengers.
Some people only have contact with others who work for their organization. For these people, co-workers
are their customers. They serve internal customers.
Most customers have two sets of needs (N). One is for a product or service (p) which is relatively easy
to deliver, be it an item such as new furniture, a meal or the latest novel; or service such as learning to
read, a few stitches after an accident or a business trip.
The second need (N) is more difficult to meet. Most purchasing decisions have an emotional (e)
component. People need to feel good about their decision, whether it is the school in which they enroll
their children or a new plasma TV. This is where customer service comes into play. Customers feel
better about doing business with people who are polite, patient and respectful. They want to feel valued
and heard.

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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

What Makes a Customer? by Nelson Scott

About the author
© Nelson Scott. All rights reserved.
A professional trainer, speaker, and consultant since 1995, Nelson Scott works with organizations that
are committed to making the right hiring decisions, developing and retaining productive staff, and
strengthening relationships with customers. Learn more by visiting www.seaconsultingonline.com or
e-mailing
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and byline at the end of each article. If you add any of my articles to your website, please include a link
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The Experts Teach:
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Top 10 Worst Things to Say to Angry Customers by Jeff Mowatt

2Top 10 Worst Things to Say to
Angry Customers by Jeff Mowatt
You may have great products but you can still have customer service problems caused by bad weather,
equipment failures, or human error. While you can’t control external events, you can control what you
say to upset customers. Certain phrases will serve to either diffuse or enflame. After over 20 years of
speaking at conferences and training teams on customer service, here are my top ten worst things to say
to unhappy customers (from least offensive to worst), along with tips for regaining trust.
10. “Want the good news or bad?”
When customers hear bad news they tend to catastrophize. They become so focused on the
obstacles that they don’t see the bigger picture. So when you have both good news and bad to
deliver, begin with the good. That way they begin with the proper perspective.
9. “Bear with us.”
To customers, that phrase comes across as an order. It also implies that your service is something
to be tolerated. When problems occur, it’s better to express appreciation than give orders.
Instead, say: “We appreciate your patience.”
8. “We can’t…”

Customers don’t want to hear what you can’t do. You need to move quickly to, “Here’s what
we can do…”
7. “It won’t be here until…”
Similar to phrase #8, the wording here is negative. Instead, word your message positively with,
“It will be here as soon as…”
6. “Yes, but…”
The word ‘but’ negates whatever precedes it. Responding to a customer with, “Yes, but…” means
you’ve started an argument. Instead, replace but with and as in, “Yes, and…”
5. “Looks like shipping messed-up.”
Blaming other employees, departments, or suppliers looks like deflecting responsibility. You
represent your company so take ownership on behalf of your entire team with words like,
“Looks like we messed up.” Better yet state, “Your problem just became my problem. I’m going
to pursue this until it’s resolved and you tell me you’re satisfied.”

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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Top 10 Worst Things to Say to Angry Customers by Jeff Mowatt

4. “Why didn’t…?
Asking a customer why something was or wasn’t done is inviting them to start blaming. You’ll
get answers like, “I guess so-and-so must have messed-up.” It makes things worse. Next time
you’re gathering information, ask who, what, where, when, and how questions. Don’t ask why.
3. “Our policy is…”
When foul-ups occur customers don’t want to hear your standard procedures. After all, mistakes
should be a rare occurrence right? Instead, explain why the policy is there. If the policy doesn’t

make sense, then obviously it should be changed. When training your team, make sure everyone
understands which procedures are meant to be guidelines; not policies.
2. “What do you want us to do?”
The customer’s response to this question may be physically uncomfortable, “I’ll tell you what
you can do with this product!” Instead ask, “What will work best for you?” Another option is
to state, “We want to do the right thing. What do you think would be fair?” Then, on top of
fixing the problem add a slight extra that helps compensate customers for the hassle. That way
you convert an upset customer into an advocate.
1. “You jerk!”(or other colorful names when a customer swears at you).
I believe employees are paid to take the heat; not the abuse. When dealing with a customer who
is swearing at you over the phone, state, “Mr X, I want to help you. But I can’t help you when
you’re using that language. So, let’s resolve this without using that language.” If they continue
swearing, then say, “Mr. X, as I said, I want to help you but I can’t help you when you’re using
that language. So, I’m going to hang up now. Please call back when you’re ready to talk about
this without using that language. Good bye.” Then, immediately brief your supervisor so they’ll
be forewarned when the caller phones asking to speak with the manager.
Bottom line – It’s human nature for employees to want to avoid dealing with angry customers. But in
the real world of delays and occasional mistakes, avoiding confrontation is impossible. Now and then,
things will go wrong. In too many organizations the default becomes, “You’ll need to speak with my
manager.” Of course, this worsens customer aggravation because it forces them to repeat themselves. And
it makes employees feel like doormats. You’ll have happier customers and a more engaged workforce by
equipping your team with simple communication tools to use when things go wrong.

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Customer Care

Top 10 Worst Things to Say to Angry Customers by Jeff Mowatt

About the author
Customer service strategist and professional speaker, Jeff Mowatt is an authority on The Art of Client
Service…Influence with Ease®. For Jeff ’s other tips, self-study resources, and training services on
establishing rapport, click />Reprint notice:
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edits to customize to suit your unique needs. When reprinting, please send us a copy of your publication
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Customer Service – The Disney Way by Martin Haworth

3Customer Service – The Disney
Way by Martin Haworth
The customer service at Walt Disney World in Florida had always been exemplary. Yet on this occasion,
as the new millennium began, there was something wrong…
We had been there a number of times. Ever since our first trip there in 1980 – quite an adventure at that
time when travelling from the UK. On that very first visit, my wife was pregnant with our first child, yet
this visit in the year 2000, seemed to show us how things had changed.
Back in 1980, we bought ‘Disney Dollars’ a gift voucher featuring all the stars of the shows. There were
three denominations and we brought them home and had them framed, back and front.
In 2000, we wanted to add to our collection with the souvenir millennium ones, yet left it to our very
last night to make our purchase.
Imagine our disappointment when we went to Guest Services at the bottom of Main Street to hear that
the $10 voucher was being only sold in EPCOT, as a ‘trial’. Not being one to give up on this, I wished
to register my complaint and asked for a senior manager, only to be told that there was no-one about.
So I then asked for the name of the manager at the most senior level in Disney World, but again, I was
told just to write to Customer Services and I was given an address in Florida.
That wasn’t good enough for me, so I suggested that I would write to Michael Eisner in Burbank,
California, where Disney’s corporate head office is. I was told by the guest services representative that,
‘I’d never hear back from him’!
When I got home, that is exactly what I did. And about three weeks after I sent off the letter, I had a
phone call – in fact, I had two phone calls, because I was out when the first one was fielded by my wife.
In the second 20-minute call (not, I hasten to add, from Micheal Eisner, but from a nice lady ‘in his
office’), she profusely apologised, questioned me a lot on the issue that I’d raised and pointed me in the
direction of where I could buy these vouchers by post. It was a detailed enquiry, so that ‘we can learn
from your experience and put it right’.
I was impressed.

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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Customer Service – The Disney Way by Martin Haworth

But not so impressed as I was four months later when I received a two-page letter from another
department, explaining what they had done to rectify the experience I’d had, in detail, as well as sending
me a full set of the vouchers I’d wanted in the first place, free of charge.
The Disney experience is one which is well known – in fact the way their customer service process
works has been described at length in a great little book called “Be Our Guest” as part of their Disney
Institute offer.
Both these are worth checking out if you want to understand better how exemplary customer service
works, from an organisation who truly know how to do it.
About the author:
Copyright 2006 Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly
by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips
and ideas at his website, www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com.
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Service With a Smile! by Bob Selden

4Service With a Smile!
by Bob Selden
There have been a couple of interesting service stories in the press over the last week. Getting front line
staff to provide excellent, even good customer service seems to be the perennial management challenge.
This appears even more challenging when times are tough and businesses are scrambling for that extra sale.
What are the latest attempts at meeting this challenge?
The first is an old one that has been tried before and is now being trotted out once again. In the US,
Delta Airlines has revived its “Red Coats” customer support service (dropped in 2005 when Delta was
in Chapter 11). For those in the US old enough to remember, “Red Coats” was probably named after
the US railway’s “Red Caps” – the porters who provided excellent service to rail passengers (they’re still
around in some places, but who travels by rail anymore?)

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Service With a Smile! by Bob Selden

The idea behind the Red Coats service is that these people will be out with the customers answering
questions and helping out, rather than behind the counter. And they will be able to issue boarding

passes from hand-held machines. Like their counter colleagues, they will not however have access to
the airline’s computer data to check on customer details, flyer-frequency etc. They won’t have any more
responsibility than their counter staff colleagues, but, they will be paid more!
Along similar lines, American Airlines are to give bonuses of $100 to $200 to customer service
representatives who meet certain service satisfaction goals (perhaps this is tipping by another name?)
A different approach is being tried in Japan. Tokyo railway workers at Keihin Express Railway Co. have
the option of checking the degree of their smile on a “smile meter”. Using a digital camera on top of
their PCs, customer service staff are able to get a reading on how well they are smiling before they start
their service shift. The smiling rating goes from “0? (grim faced) to “100? (a very broad smile). Company
managers (who can also test their smiles) believe that “a smile goes a long way” to providing excellent
service (anyone who has traveled on the Tokyo subway can attest to the service challenges these staff face).
By now you can no doubt spot the different management philosophies at play in these two approaches.
The first is once again, bribing people to perform. And they are not being given any more responsibility
than others who are not being bribed. The second, which is optional, leaves it to the individual to take
direct responsibility for his or her performance.
Which will be more successful?
Well, if history can be any gauge, US airlines have been notoriously poor performers in the area of
customer service. For instance, in the most recent airline surveys (Skytrax), there are 34 airlines rated
higher than Delta or American – both of whom, only get a 3-star ranking. By comparison the six 5-star
service airlines are all Asian as are 12 of the 29 4-star airlines.
What underpins these differing results? As any well-read student of customer service will tell you, service
starts with management. If managers treat their staff the way they want their staff to treat the customer,
then they will get good service results. Are Delta and American managers to be rewarded for treating
their staff better?
Now, you could say that there are cultural issues that impact the differing results here. And you’d be
right. But there is also a very important management principle that seems to have been overlooked by
the US airlines – what really motivates people to perform at their best?

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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Service With a Smile! by Bob Selden

You might think that I am being rather hard on the US airlines. Well, those Asian airlines who have tried
the “bribery” approach have also failed. One such attempt was tried by Garuda with fatal (yes, cost of
human life) results. Garuda, by the way still only rate as a 3-star airline.
Until the US airline managers and others with similar mindsets can work out what motivates people,
their latest efforts at improving customer service will have no greater impact than what has been tried
before. There’s no substitute for good management and leadership.
About the author
Bob Selden is the author of the best-selling “What To Do When You Become The Boss” – a self-help
book for new managers – see details at He’s also coached at
one of the world’s premier business schools, the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne,
Switzerland and regularly advises managers around the globe on their current challenges.
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The View from the Front Line by Jim Clemmer

5The View from the Front
Line by Jim Clemmer
Employees who deal directly with the public are valuable players in building a customer-focused
organization. Their potential, however, is often overlooked. Only a tiny fraction of customer complaints
and suggestions ever reaches top management’s attention.
To tap this motherlode of suggestions and ideas, companies must set up processes to make internal
communication easier – and they must invite frontline employees to pass along what they hear.
That’s been the goal of Blue Mountain Resorts, a ski resort about two hours north of Toronto. President
Gordon Canning and his vice-presidents regularly run meetings with frontline employees to ask: “What
are our customers telling you?”
The feedback is recorded and posted on bulletin boards for all to see. Issues and opportunities that arise
from these meetings are put on management meeting agendas and relentlessly tracked until they’ve been
acted upon or proved unworkable.
Input can come from many sources: from busboys noticing uneaten food (they’re expected to ask the
customer why); or from bar servers receiving repeated requests for a particular snack that’s unavailable.
These steps have improved customer satisfaction dramatically – to the extent that Mr. Canning got a
standing ovation from the resort’s members at the annual meeting.
Vancouver-based Finning Ltd., is another company that has taken the opportunity to involve frontline
people in eliciting customer feedback. Finning, the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer, has implemented
a complaint management system that makes employees the eyes and ears of the organization.
“We’re located in a number of small communities across Western Canada,” explains Ron Clark, general
manager of branch operations. “Many of our customers are friends with our employees. They play ball
and drink beer together.
“In the past, when customers mentioned a service or equipment problem, most employees couldn’t do
much more than show some empathy or apologize for it. Now we’ve given them a process to bring those
problems forward and have them dealt with.”

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The View from the Front Line by Jim Clemmer

Once a particular complaint is voiced, it is recorded and added to a data base that pinpoints deeper
problems in processes or systems that need attention.
In any company, frontline employees are not just important sources of customer feedback – they play
direct roles in raising satisfaction. Research consistently shows that customer and employee satisfaction
are intertwined. You seldom find happy customers being served by unhappy employees. It doesn’t take
an organization psychologist to figure that out.
Customer service, especially service that delights and astounds, is voluntary. Employees decide whether
to follow strict company policy, or make a little exception for a customer’s unique circumstances. They
can decide whether to call customers by name, or treat them as more files to be managed, more calls to
be handled, more mouths to be fed.
Going the extra step to take care of an unusual request is often optional. The degree to which employees
make those decisions in favor of the customer, depends upon the environment they are working in.
About the author
Jim Clemmer has been writing and speaking about leadership, change, team, and organization
effectiveness for over 30 years. His extensive research, broad experience with hundreds of organizations
and thousands of people, and deep understanding of these topics makes him an internationally
recognized leader in the field. Beyond his seven books, he’s written hundreds of columns and articles
for newspapers and magazines.
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and publications as long as the attribution is included. Here is the video:
/>Jim also says that, if you’d like to send these articles to colleagues, we encourage you to pass along, share,
or reprint any material you find in this section.
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From Ichiban to Kaizen by Erica Rowntree

6From Ichiban to Kaizen
by Erica Rowntree
In the late 20th century, Japanese industry stormed the world. Their approach to new technology left the
West struggling to catch up. Instead of sitting back complacently, like many in the West, Japan showed that
by adopting strategies of total customer service, anyone could start from point zero and beat the world.
1. Ichiban
Ichiban is a Japanese word which has no equivalent in English. It means “a desire to be the
best”. Customer-focused organisations exhibit it throughout their ranks. The Receptionists
want to be the best in town. The HR department wants to be the best in the region. The Sales
department wants to be the best in the division. The board wants to be the best in their industry.
The new twist that Ichiban brings to strategic thinking is that being the best can be achieved,
not by ruthless cut-price aggressive attitudes towards competitors but by long-term, strategic
and persistent attention to customers.

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2. Benchmarking
Benchmarking means comparing the way you work to the “benchmarks” set by others. These
could be others in your industry, others in your profession, or others in your business. In fact,
anyone who performs at the current best. You can benchmark anything that you do, from the
way you greet a customer on the phone to the service you give people after they buy. There’s
nothing complicated about benchmarking. You simply record what others do and then record
what you do, whether it’s your efficiency ratios, stock holding, or absentee rates. And then you
set about being the very best around.
3. Everyone a Front-Liner
Rosabeth Moss Kanter said that, “No matter what strategy leaders inside the organisation
devise, what customers see is at the front line.” This was brought home very forcibly in a UK
TV programme a few years ago when top executives swapped jobs with their front-line staff.
In nearly every case, they were astonished at the difference between the customer strategy they
thought was working and the one that actually was. If you want to stay in touch with what
your customers experience, you have to be a front-liner all the time, either by exercises such
as “in-touch” days, or by systems that allow you to constantly know what the customer thinks.
4. Quality Rules
Until Japanese industry showed us the way in the late 20th century, the idea that most people
had of quality in the West was flawed. Western businesses believed that quality was determined
by how good you could make a product or service. Not so, said the Japanese. Quality was, quite
simply, whatever the customer wanted, delivered in a way that the customer wanted. While

most Western businesses produced products and services as best they could and corrected any
defects as they arose, Japanese businesses focused all their efforts on preventing defects in the
first place. They simply followed the 7 R’s: right time, right place, right way, right cost, right
system, right spec, and right method.
5. Mobilizing Your Workforce
Japan is a country of few natural resources. Compared to other parts of the world, such as
Africa, she is a poor country. However, unlike other countries, Japan is super-rich in the one
resource that matters: her people. Through lifelong attention to this resource, from school
through university and throughout their working lives, Japanese business has no choice but to
mobilize every ounce of intelligence from their workers. That’s why, when it comes to quality
and customer service, Japan is streets ahead of every other country in the world.

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From Ichiban to Kaizen by Erica Rowntree

6. Travelling Light
Serving the customer and their changing needs means travelling light. Organisations that grow
too big, like dinosaurs, lose the fleetness of foot to adapt and change and so are brought down
by those who are quicker to see and seize the opportunities. In the words of Rosabeth Moss
Kanter, customer-driven firms have to become like “giants who have learned how to dance”.
7. Kaizen
Kaizen, like Ichiban, is a Japanese word that defies exact interpretation into English. It is best
defined as a process of continuous improvement. In making the Civic car, Soichiro Honda
undertook massive research into what markets across the world wanted from a family car. He

researched driving habits, dashboard styles, favoured colours, road conditions, weather patterns
and so on and on, in a never-ending search for the perfect product. Kaizen is a bit like planting
a garden. You aim for perfection. You fail and try again. You need to become an expert. You
only learn by trying and learning.
The result of these 7 Japanese-inspired strategies was the demise of many industries in the West.
Fortunately, the lessons were, and are still being, learnt. And that is, that to ensure your survival as a
business, you must turn everything you do into a customer-focused enterprise.
About the author
Erica Rowntree is an article contributor at ManageTrainLearn, the site that will change the way you learn
forever. Download free samples of the biggest range of management and personal development materials
anywhere and experience learning like you always dreamed possible;
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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

Good Sticky vs Bad Sticky by Thomas Cox

7Good Sticky vs Bad Sticky
by Thomas Cox
Business relationships can be either transactional or relational, and can be non-sticky, good-sticky, or
bad-sticky – and you want to embrace good-sticky and avoid bad-sticky.

In a business relationship, what does it mean to be sticky? It tells you if it’s easy or hard to give up this
vendor and go with another one.
If it’s easy to give up one for another, that’s transactional and non-sticky. It’s like picking a gas station – as
long as there are at least two of them nearby, you can pick either one with equal comfort.
If it’s hard to give up one for another, that’s relational and non-sticky. If you tried to give up your QWERTY
keyboard for a DVORAK keyboard, for example, or if you tried to switch accounting software, or children,
or primary spoken languages – for most of us, these would be very tough or impossible. Sticky.
Sticky, however, comes in these two flavors, good and bad. When it comes to my kids, I’m glad I couldn’t
conceive of swapping them out for new kids. That’s because we have a special relationship, and no new
kids could take their places. When you’re glad to have the relationship, that’s good-sticky.

The Wake
the only emission we want to leave behind

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The Experts Teach:

Customer Care

Good Sticky vs Bad Sticky by Thomas Cox

We all have business relationships that are good-sticky too – an excellent accountant, for example, who
is always helping save us money. A great dentist who makes you comfortable and does great work fast.
You could change – you just don’t want to.
And finally there’s the bad-sticky business relationships. The ones you’d like to change, yet you feel you
can’t. The payroll service that you think will be too difficult to change. The accountant who confuses
you. The old computer system that’s not compatible with anything else. Run away from these.
And when it comes to being in a business relationship, you want your customers to feel that good
stickiness – they could change to someone else, they just don’t want to.
About the author
Tom Cox is CEO at B-Studio Business Videos, Managing Consultant at Cox Business Consulting, Inc.,
and CEO at GrowthMaps
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The Experts Teach:
Customer Care

More is Said than Done about Improving Customer Service by Jim Clemmer

8More is Said than Done

about Improving Customer
Service by Jim Clemmer
“Customer demands are getting harder and harder to meet. That’s great because it’s getting tougher for
our competition to survive.” – Comment from the CEO of a very successful company
Effective teams, organizations, and leaders exist to serve others. And those who provide the highest levels
of service/quality enjoy the richest rewards. That’s not just some platitude or warm and fuzzy theory; it’s
become a well-proven fact. In Firing on All Cylinders I reviewed much of this evidence. I showed that
those organizations with the highest service/quality levels have the highest levels of growth in revenue,
customer satisfaction and retention, market share, productivity, safety, and employee morale while also
reducing costs. So it’s not surprising that the best service/quality leaders are also profitable leaders.
Since writing Firing on All Cylinders, the research continues to pour in. My files are bulging with study
after study showing that outstanding service/quality performance is one of the key contributors to
outstanding financial performance.
It’s nothing new. Peter Drucker has been reminding us for decades now that the only reason for the
existence of any business is to get and keep customers. Winston Churchill once said, “If you aim to profit,
learn to please.” A century ago, Russell Conwell would conclude his famous “Acres of Diamonds” speeches
by urging his listeners to start their search for riches by “first knowing the demand.” He continued, “You
must first know what people need, and then invest yourself where you are most needed.”
Understanding and managing to current customer expectations means having both the will and the
way. We must first agree that our customers’ expectations and perceptions of the value they receive from
us is a key driver of our business. Then we need to systematically turn soft customer expectations and
perceptions into hard, manageable data. That calls for the discipline of a rigorous management system
and process.
A service/quality improvement system can be boiled down to three major steps: (1) Identify Current
Customers/Partners; (2) Prioritize Expectations; and (3) Gap Analysis. These steps are part of the rigorous
goals, measurements, and standards we need to continually improve our current products and services
to our existing customers.

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