Customer-Driven Quality Service
VanAmburg Group Customer Driven Quality Service
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LEARN FROM OTHER'S WORK

If you want your customers to drive your business, learn from what others have done.
Many large U.S. corporations serving consumer markets such as utilities, finance and health care, invested strongly in the concept of quality service during the 1980s and 1990s. They completed extensive research, and then developed customer service programs to respond to the feedback they received.

IMPORTANCE, EXPECTATIONS AND SATISFACTION

Utilities, in particular, were rewarded by their state regulators for achieving high levels of customer satisfaction. Florida Power & Light shared much of its methodology for comparing areas of customer importance vs. satisfaction. We expanded the research dimension of customer expectations for our utility clients. One of them, National Fuel, invested in four years of research with us to develop their "In the Service of Others" quality service program conceived by (now retired) CEO, Bernie Kennedy.

STRUCTURE YOUR PROGRAM

Once you've committed to a quality service program:

  • Define all your customer groups for each service or product line you sell.
  • Develop flow charts of all customer interactions to identify each moment of truth (point of interaction) with all departments.
  • Test customers' importance, expectations and satisfaction with each moment of truth.
  • Evaluate and resolve the empowerment levels of your staff to serve and resolve customer issues at each moment of truth.
  • Implement customer service program and train staff.
  • Establish specific satisfaction level goals.
  • Track ongoing customer satisfaction levels, feed issues to staff for immediate resolution.

AUTOMATE YOUR PROCESS

Research Secret: Creating an effective quality service program is much easier and less expensive now with the maturing of Internet technology. You benefit from ongoing real-time customer feedback systems rather than snapshot studies. And you can integrate those results with automated ongoing customer communications systems, thereby dramatically lowering your customer support costs.

 

CONTACT US to help make your research the key to your company's future.

Copyright VanAmburg Group, Inc.
Updated November 4, 2008
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