Customer Service Week is an international celebration that values the importance of customer service and the people who serve and support customers on a daily basis. Usually marked on the first week of October, it provides a unique opportunity for service and support professionals around the globe to join in on a celebration of the important role that customer service plays in every organization.
Customer-centricity helps you to build trust and loyalty of your customers, while solidifying reputation. It increases the probability of positive word of mouth, but at the same time reduces friction between customers and your employees.
Thus, if a person is satisfied with a product or service they are unlikely to change it.
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With this in mind how can we better the services we give to our customers?
The first key element in value building is creating the need for change. We can only do this by exploring the issues that the customer is experiencing so as to create the need for change.
In a bid to keep the exploration smart, we must deliberately target areas that are known to be well positioned to solve these problems. We can, therefore, learn a lot about customer’s problems by asking questions to clarify the issues they may be facing while exploring the effects of the problems on their business. This process is complete when the customer clearly sees that the status quo is no longer acceptable.
The second element is focusing on the payoffs and savings of eliminating the customer’s issues. Thus, we help the customer to start envisioning the ‘perfect world‘, by talking about the real value in addressing their problems. In effect, we are constructing a performance specification for any forthcoming solution which, of course, we can supply.
This process allows us to mold their needs around our offerings. The intelligent use of questions to explore the problems ensures that we will ultimately play to our strengths by uncovering issues the competition are not so effective at solving. This is part of the differentiation process.
What is key to remember, is every customer is different. Yes, at high level they will be seeking common solutions that we and our competitors can supply. The only way to differentiate ourselves from competition is by bringing added value, which is brought about when we create value in our strengths.
Alice Mwai is the Managing Director of Resolution Insurance
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