Great Service: it’s a six-way win
Whenever the topic of delivering great customer service is raised, it is naturally assumed by most that the sole winner is the customer. After all, they get to experience all the ingredients that go into delivering outstanding levels of service; warm greetings, genuine welcoming smiles, opening hours that suit, pleasant well designed office and retail spaces, an extensive range of sizes and colours in stock, well trained and knowledgeable staff that take the time to listen and offer workable solutions, as well as a full array of payment and delivery options accompanied by genuine product and service warranties and guarantees.
However, the customer is not alone in being the beneficiary of experiencing great customer service.
Employees of the business or organisation delivering the high quality service are also winners. They get to work in the happy and harmonious team oriented work environment that forms an essential basis for providing service excellence. They get to share time and space with fellow happy and productive members of staff and as the business does better financially, they get to share in the financial rewards. They enjoy the rewards of smart business operators investing sizeable amounts of time and money into their ongoing professional development. They also get to provide great service to grateful customers. Remember; being of service to others is the highest form of happiness.
All levels of management also win as they experience reduced levels of staff turnover, absenteeism, and vexatious worker claims and complaints. They also receive increased numbers of job applicants in response to recruitment advertisements as the business gets known in the marketplace as being a great place to work. Managing happy motivated people is also dramatically more pleasurable and far less stressful than managing people who would rather be somewhere else.
Owners and shareholders receive their win in the form of higher profits and increased returns on the time and capital they have invested in their respective businesses. It is a valid truism that happy people are productive people. Happy employees produce more and have less downside costs attached to their employment. Happy customers return more often spending more money and love to tell their friends and family what a joy it is to do business with you. Happy customers are your most potent form of advertising. Tons of empirical evidence demonstrates that profit is an accurate scorecard of how well you are taking care of your customers. It’s the quality of your front-line that drives the quantity of your bottom-line.
Suppliers to the business win as they get paid more promptly owing to the increased financial strength of the business, and as the business grows, so does the amount of products and services sourced by the host business from all their product and service suppliers. Even the Tax Office wins.
And last but certainly not least, the families of all the above stakeholder groups win as happy people return home at the end of a busy productive day with a smile on their face instead of a stress related frown. The ultimate winner is the family cat that gets a cuddle instead of a kick when its happy owner returns from an enjoyable and satisfying day at work.
A six-way win with no losers; why would any business choose not to deliver great service?
