What Is Consistent Customer Service?
In order to be competitive, companies in the retail and service industry must deliver excellent customer service on a consistent basis. Consistent customer service allows the customer to trust the company, knowing that she will receive good service not just sometimes but every time.
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Definition
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A person who is consistent in his actions is considered trustworthy, reliable and dependable. The same goes for companies, suggests Glenn Ross in the AllBusiness.com article, "Eight Questions To Help Instill Customer Service Consistency In Your Business." Customers expect companies to perform within a certain range of consistency, and although exceeding expectations is good for repeat business, falling below expectations is not.
Problem
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The customer service of a company is not consistent if some of the employees deliver good customer service and some do not. If a customer receives good service from one employee and poor service from another, her overall experience of the company has been fair at best. Moreover, because this customer cannot rely on the company to provide good service every time, she does not associate trust with the company.
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Significance
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Customer service is often thought of as an interaction between an individual employee and a customer, but creating a consistently excellent customer service experience is something that can only be achieved if every employee delivers a level of service that meets or exceeds customer expectations. For that to happen, customer service employees must be both supported and held accountable by management.
Considerations
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Consistent customer service applies not only to customer-employee interactions, but also to consistency in products. A Coke should taste the same no matter where in the country a person has purchased it, in the example Ross gives. Building a brand relates to all of the ways in which a company "touches" customers, writes Anne M. Obarski in the article "Consistent Customer Service" for SideRoad.com. When a customer interacts with a product, just as when he interacts with an employee, it impacts his total experience of the company or brand. Customer service must also be consistent across different stores and different regions for a company to build a trustworthy brand.
Solution
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Things companies can do to build consistent customer service include communicating customer service vision to employees; providing training and resources to help employees be successful; holding employees accountable for their consistency; recognizing and rewarding high-performing employees; reviewing policies and procedures to make sure they support customers coming first; and asking employees for feedback on how to maintain and improve upon the consistency that is offered to customers, according to Ross. If employees have appropriate training, support and reward systems and the company is clear about its customer service mission and communicates it to employees, consistent customer service is a realizable goal.
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References
- Photo Credit customer service image by Kurhan from Fotolia.com
