Example of Outstanding Customer Service
What do the entertainment mogul Disney, department store Nordstrom, online shoe vendor Zappos and Southwest Airlines have in common? World-renowned customer service, for one. These companies represent examples of outstanding customer service in action. Each organization uses unique processes to achieve their excellent service goals. Internet technology and social networks aid in spreading stories of exceptional customer representatives.
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Function
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Southwest Airlines achieves excellent customer service through what the company calls "closeness to the customer." Southwest takes customer suggestions seriously, taking the time to personally reply to all letters written to the airline. Federal Express uses a program called LEAP (Leadership, Evaluation, and Awareness Process) to decentralize decision-making. Allowing service representatives to make on-the-spot decisions without management direction is also the backbone of Nordstrom's and Zappo's outstanding customer service policies. Empowered representatives make service fast and friendly.
Types
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Outstanding customer service comes in many forms. Focus on customer needs and attention to detail represents one type, but social responsibility is customer service of another kind. For example, gourmet cafe chain Starbucks buys its coffee beans from growers who use environmentally sound farming techniques and the company often pays more than "fair trade" market price to promote international welfare. Disney not only features excellent customer service at their amusement parks, it also endorses family values through consistently wholesome television programming. The social initiatives of these two companies are a type of customer service that caters to customers' values.
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Features
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Nordstrom's policies feature examples of outstanding service such as: walking customers to changing rooms while carrying their potential purchases, sending customers thank-you notes and working overtime to satisfy customers. Zappos offers free shipping, occasionally upgrading to overnight shipping at no extra charge, just to "surprise" the customer. Zappos customer service line is answered by representatives 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The online shoe retailer has recently begun using the social network Twitter to transparently interact with both employees and customers.
Effects
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Zappos' service is so outstanding that 75 percent of its business comes from repeat customers, according to CNN Money. Nordstrom's customer service is so legendary that in 2005 Robert Spector and Patrick D. McCarthy wrote a book called "The Nordstrom Way" as a handbook to help managers implement excellent customer service in their own companies. Disney's emphasis on wholesome entertainment has earned the entertainment company legions of dedicated fans. Starbucks and Disney also top Fortune 500's list of America's most admired corporations.
Expert Insight
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New technology has made customer service more transparent. Customers use social networks to tell stories about their encounters with representatives, and their stories can quickly become legends. Time magazine technology essayist Steven James Snyder discussed the effects that the Internet has had on customer service with author Pete Blackshaw: "Until now, most customer service has been in a black hole of obscurity," says Blackshaw, an executive at Nielsen Online Strategic Services and the author of "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000." "Now you just spend a few minutes searching tweets to see who's mad and then how they were dealt with."
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- Photo Credit Group of business people working together in the office. image by Andrey Kiselev from Fotolia.com
