Another day of commuting, another day of misery on the District Line… however this blog is about celebrating superior service whenever it occurs and whilst my overall customer experience on the homeward journey tonight was less-than-superior due to a “customer incident”
Superior examples
Get your customers to form a habit
The New Year is typically the time when we resolve to give something up (looking at the date of the last post I wondered if I had temporarily given up blogging!) but for some businesses it’s time to think about making customers form a habit – with you.
I was struck by this thought recently
Getting the basics right: welcome!
Superior customer service is largely about knowing what the basic elements of good service are – and delivering them consistently and well. A couple of examples from last week’s family holiday in Yorkshire illustrate how making people feel welcome sets the right tone for a good customer experience.
Wow! 2) Learning from examples
When I was setting up this site my intention was to provide a source of stories about superior service from my own and others’ perspective. So I was particularly pleased to find a book that contains just that. The only problem is that I didn’t write it.
Wow! 1) Getting the basics right
This week’s mini-series deals with the idea of the Wow! experience – literally an experience that makes you go ‘Wow! That was great!’ Later in the week we’ll look at the Wow! Awards which contain the most comprehensive examples, in the UK at least. First, I wanted to share my own recent Wow! that shows that sometimes it’s the little things – the basics, you might say – that make a customer experience superior.
Be a great customer: give the gift of feedback
I can’t hear the expression ‘the gift of feedback’ without hearing a slightly sarcastic tone of voice probably because I have heard it used in that fashion to refer to feedback that’s un-diplomatic, too blunt or just plain rude. However, for any organisation committed to superior customer service, encouraging and dealing effectively with feedback is one of the most powerful things to drive improvement. I’m continuing to provide feedback to organisations that I deal with and will share the best examples on this blog. Here’s one that illustrates some good practice.
Chez Bruce: a passion for superior service
Following my earlier post on Chez Bruce‘s excellent customer service I met with chef-proprietor Bruce Poole to find out how he fosters a culture of service in his restaurant. His comments are an object lesson for businesses of all types aiming to raise the bar in service provision.
BT Yahoo Launchcast: superior service – eventually
Simplicity, trust and black napkins
At the risk of turning this blog into a restaurant column, John Maeda’s excellent simplicity blog features an interesting item on his visit to a restaurant where his white table napkin was removed and replaced with a black one. Maeda treats this as an example of trust – by demonstrating an attention to detail.
The customer’s role in superior service
The discussions on superior service examples yielded a detailed response from management consultant Jane Northcote (www.janenorthcote.com) whose take on superior service recognises that it’s a two-way transaction. Jane writes:
Customer service is traditionally regarded as an attribute of a company: Waitrose provides ‘good’ customer service, an electronics discount store provides ‘bad’ customer service. Equally, however, it is true that customer service is an attribute of the customer. Some people experience good customer service, and others bad, even from the same organisation. Why is this?