Kendall Koff is the Chief Executive Officer of RailPros.
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Industries around the world depend on a variety of services and products to fulfill their respective missions. When your business is one that provides support through the delivery of a service rather than a product, excellent service is key to supporting and growing your business.
I’d like to talk about what makes service excellence the tool that sets a company apart from the competition. Customers today have a wide variety of options to choose from, and they are more likely to choose a company that offers superior service.
Consistently delivering high-quality service that meets or exceeds customer expectations remains a top priority for companies of all sizes in today’s highly competitive business environment. Success in this area promotes growth and margin expansion and can be a key component in overcoming competitive pressures and moving toward commoditization.
Here are some key steps in implementing a service excellence strategy:
• Seek candid input from stakeholders. When developing a service excellence strategy, you should try to foster discussion with all stakeholders, starting with the customer. Also, be sure to include every person within your organization who contributes to the final product. Based on these validated requirements from customers and stakeholders, the main characteristics that the service provider must meet will become very clear.
• Socialize your most important qualities. These characteristics should be remembered and communicated at all levels of your organization. This requires involvement from senior leadership all the way through frontline workers – no one is exempt from the pursuit of service excellence.
• Track and adjust. Once the team is on board with your service excellence goals and framework, the team can move into auditing for success to ensure delivery aligns with the goals set and validated with each customer. Stakeholder feedback is essential and should be welcomed as an opportunity for improvement or recognition of work well done.
Excellence goes hand in hand with the realization that the company as a service provider is active in both the service industry and people affairs. The service is delivered by people, so your focus on service excellence should include employee engagement, communication, training and, ultimately, auditing for results. Success not only leads to great customer service, but also to higher employee satisfaction.
When employees feel valued and receive the necessary training, tools and support to provide excellent service, they are more likely to be engaged in their work. This leads to higher productivity and employee retention, which ultimately benefits the company. At our company, we encourage this outcome by embedding our philosophy of service excellence in the hiring, training, and assessment of individual and team performance. We measure, assess and reward based on our seven pillars of excellent service. This empowers employees to confidently take action to honor our standards of service excellence and creates a culture that is consistent with those standards.
Excellent service also helps build trust and credibility with customers. When a company consistently provides high-quality service, customers are more likely to view it as a trustworthy and reliable provider. This helps build and strengthen long-term relationships with customers and creates a loyal customer base. If the customer trusts the company and the brand, they are likely to love you too. This often leads to improved opportunities for organic growth of the business relationship and even new business partnerships with the customer. In addition, excellent service creates a positive image of your company among competitors and peers in your industry and helps to strengthen a favorable brand reputation.
In short, providing excellent service is essential for any business that wants to succeed in today’s competitive market. It helps to retain current customers, attract new customers, build trust and credibility, meet and exceed customer expectations, and invest in employees. By committing to excellent service, companies can ensure long-term success and growth.
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