Poor customer service creates a leak in your organization, causing potentially loyal customers to slip away. In other words, poor service will cost your organization money. Lots of money. You incur this cost in two ways . . . Your customers won’t come back Your customers won’t recommend you to anyone So where is all the lost money going? 1. Direct loss of sales Have you ever tried to buy something from an organization, and their service became so poor […]
Tag Archives: Service
Jul
21
Feb
24
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Making Customers Satisfied is Out of Date
When you provide the right service at the right price, at the right time, and to the agreed-upon specifications, the customer is satisfied. This is the mission of most organizations because they assume that it is sufficient to satisfy customers. But studies conducted on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty show that this assumption is deeply flawed. Xerox, for several years in the past, polled 480,000 customers per year regarding product and service satisfaction using a five-point scale […]
Apr
10
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Using Service to Create a Competitive Edge
Many organizations think that the only way to grow their business is to find new customers. But often, the best source for growth is sitting right in front of you: existing customers. Finding new customers aids business growth but here’s an important fact: Studies show that the probability of selling to an existing happy customer is up to 14x higher than the probability of selling to a new customer. See Figure 1. Figure 1 Hence it makes perfect sense to take […]
Mar
7
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One question you need to ask your customers
When you deliver the right service at the right price, at the right time, and to the agreed-upon specifications, it does not lead to customer loyalty. This is because you’ve only made the customer satisfied and mere satisfaction does not lead to loyalty. In fact, independent studies confirm that customers who are merely satisfied are still very likely to purchase from another source. However, that is not to say that there is no correlation between customer satisfaction and loyalty. There […]
Jan
19
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Starting the year with a clear service concept
The service concept is a shared understanding of what the organization provides and what the customer receives. Although it’s a simple idea, the service concept is powerful and can be used as a central tool in the design, delivery and improvement of services. In fact, concepts are what customers actually buy, not the elements of service. For instance, an MBA student buys ‘employability’ from the business school and not the elements of service like lectures, books, and certificate. Similarly, a […]
Jun
14
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The customer satisfaction level that leads to loyalty
When you look at the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty, it would seem that it’s linear where a little more satisfaction results in an equivalent increase in loyalty. But that’s not the case. The graph below depicts what the relationship is in practical terms. As you can see, from highly dissatisfied to neutral (relatively happy), nothing much happens in terms of loyalty. Then, as satisfaction becomes more than mere satisfaction and turns into highly satisfied, loyalty increases sharply. What […]
Jun
7
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Service as competitive advantage
Increasing competition, declining sales and more service-aware customers are putting pressure on organizations to rethink and improve the levels of service that they offer. Hence, many organizations are recognizing that by improving the service provided, they can make significant and sustainable gains in the marketplace. Service and service delivery can be, and increasingly are, a competitive weapon. As highlighted in our previous write-up, “Understanding the service concept”, the effect of good service on creating valuable customers, increasing customer retention and […]
Jun
1
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Understanding the service concept
Good service creates customer satisfaction. Excellent service creates customer loyalty. Hence, by building service excellence into your organization, customer loyalty is increased which in turn results to profitable and sustainable business growth. Implementing an effective service strategy with a focus on retaining customers has proven to be more effective at increasing sales and profit, than mere marketing campaigns, promotions or advertising. Thus there is a strong correlation between service delivery and profit with research showing that a 5% increase in […]
Feb
10
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Customer Satisfaction: In which of these quadrants would you place your organization?
The level of customer satisfaction determines how successful an organization will be. Hence it is important to have a good understanding of what makes customers truly satisfied. It will help you to know how your organization is doing and contribute in seeking ways of possible improvement. From the customers’ perspective, satisfaction is made up of two major components – Customer Experience and Service Outcome. Customer experience is the customers’ perception of the service process or product acquisition process. It is […]
