Definition of Customer Service If you are high tech, a company in a traditional industry, a non-profit, a government agency, or in the hospitality industry, you can create passionate customer loyalty using the following definition. “Excellent customer service is the process by which your organization delivers its services or products in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible. ” Customer service is a process, not a set of actions that might include greeting the customer, smiling, asking if you can help, etc.

Customer service is a process, not a set of actions that might include greeting the customer, smiling, asking if you can help, etc. Customer service is about how your organization delivers its product or service. The part that sales people play in the customer service process is taking the customer through the process in order for him or her to receive the product they walked in the door to acquire. The process is efficient. Product information is immediately available. It is complete and correct. The sales person can refer the buyer to the website, spec sheet, literature, ingredients—or whatever other information is relevant.

The features and benefits are presented convincingly, but honestly. The terms of the purchase are clear. The payment process takes place in the least amount of time possible. If the product requires manufacturing or modification, accurate estimates are given about the time required. If the product is immediately available, there is virtually no lag time in taking possession of the product or experiencing the benefits of the service. The process is fair. The customer service process must be transparent. If an organization can practice full disclosure in an obvious way in their product nformation and their contracts, they are on the way to creating customer loyalty. If the customer experiences your organization as one where they were never surprised and never felt deceived, the organization will create a competitive edge in a world where there is precious little confidence in the customer service process. The product or service is cost-efficient. The product or is competitively priced, competitive pricing is the only way to survive in the marketplace. Products shouldn’t seem to look like better quality than they really are.

Say you take home a CD player for a present to one of your children that looks chrome plated and is really cool. In a couple of weeks you discover the “chrome” is really cheap plastic and it has peeled, looking like fury animal that’s shedding. You’re really steamed because of this product. It they had just used sturdy gray plastic that stayed on you wouldn’t feel ripped off. Coffee pots and blenders often look just like durable appliances, and they expire in six months. I’d rather know I’m getting a throwaway product because it looks like one.

Don’t create expectations that will be disappointed. Customer service is a sellable commodity. You can sell customer service. Companies are so focused on sales and cost cutting that they can’t see service as a commodity when it’s right in front of them. That’s actually what a service contract is all about. The product should last through the first year of the standard limited warranty. If it doesn’t, if you sell them a service contact for the first 12 months, then you’re not selling service, you’re selling protection—protection against your inferior product.

If, however, you assure that your product is highly unlikely to develop problems during the first year, you’ll gain significant customer loyalty and also have a consumer that will be positive toward buying an extended customer warranty beyond the first 12 months. Customer service must be delivered in the most humanly satisfying manner and pleasurable possible. The act of buying or acquiring is one of the strongest human emotions. I buy Starbucks coffee when I don’t even want coffee. Why? Because I enjoy the act of buying. If I feel sad, it always makes me feel good to go out and buy some nice new clothes.

As the CEO of my company, what more powerful feeling could I experience than buying another company or a huge piece of equipment? It’s a real trip to spend a few million dollars. Why do department heads want a bigger budget? It’s so they can spend! In spending they feel useful and powerful. So, yes, romancing the customer continues to be important in order to make to make the act of buying pleasurable at every level of sale. Enhancing the pleasure on the small-ticket item may be a great checkout system with a checker who is friendly.

At the big-ticket level it may be a resort encounter with customers and sales people at an exotic location. You have to sell more than the “sizzle. ” Store interiors that look a movie set from Star Wars don’t compensate for an inferior product mix. Wal-Mart success certainly is a testimony to this fact. Sales people nicely dressed and smiling big will create a negative reaction if the sales system doesn’t work efficiently. Yet the pleasure of the buying experience in many cases is as an important as the product itself. Creativity in creating the buying experience is a key component or organizations today.