There are many ways any business can (and should) improve customer service. Here are a couple that stand out and can be done without spending a ton of money.

1. Make service a priority

This means your reason for being in business is to help your customers. So everything you do needs to be held up against this standard. Your actions decisions, policies and procedures need to show this. This creates a culture of service in your company. (Your customers know if you DON’T operate this way!)

In the world of customer service improvement, we talk about the need to ask questions and listen. Let the customer tell us what they want. And we should do this.  But helping customers get what they want takes more. We need to be their coach.

Our customers can and should tell us where they want to go. But we need to help them find the best way to get there. That’s where our skills come into play. (If they already knew the best way, they wouldn’t need us.)

It makes sense that if you improve customer service, you will increase customer loyalty. But improving customer service is not necessarily easy. It takes more than a seminar or a motivational speaker. It takes effort and time to make a sustainable improvement in the level of service you deliver your customers.

Not long ago I was talking with Dr. Alan Weiss about customer service. Among the many good ideas he mentioned to improve customer service, one stood out. Alan said “if you want to improve customer service in your company, get a role model”. So, with thanks to Dr. Weiss for his thought starter, here are some of my suggestions to find (or create) a Amazing Service role model in your company.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

To improve customer service coach your peers

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

One of the best things about coaching is that when we help others by coaching we learn as much, if not more, than they do. By focusing on helping and doing so by asking questions, we boost our learning and retention power many times.

This is true for customer service too. We can improve our own skills, motivation and performance by helping our co-workers improve theirs. But we need to do it by gentle coaching rather than by telling them what to do.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Catch people in the act of delivering amazing service

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

If you want to improve your own customer service then watch people around you and observe the customer service they deliver. Maybe these people are co-workers. Maybe they are employees in businesses you patronize. It doesn’t matter. Your first step is to watch them and note how they do. Your second step is to reward them when they deliver great customer service.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Recognize others for delivering great customer service.

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

If you want to improve your own customer service then watch people around you and observe the customer service they deliver. Maybe these people are co-workers. Maybe they are employees in businesses you patronize. It doesn’t matter. Your first step is to watch them and note how they do. Your second step is to reward them when they deliver great customer service.

You know you’ve wanted to. We all have. “You want customer service, I’ll give you customer service”.  Pow!

Let’s face it, unless you have the moral fiber of Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi, you’ve had a moment where you’ve wanted to pop a customer. I know I have.

But we don’t actually do it. Well, most of us don’t.

One of the challenges in improving customer service is putting new ideas to work.  Often they’re not even new ideas but reminders of what we already know.  Ideas are cheap. It’s using them effectively that brings us the results we want.

Here’s a tip to help you improve the quality of your customer service immediately:

Recognize others for delivering great customer service.

If you want to improve your own customer service then watch people around you and observe the customer service they deliver. Maybe these people are co-workers. Maybe they are employees in businesses you patronize. It doesn’t matter. Your first step is to watch them and note how they do. Your second step is to reward them when they deliver great customer service.

Next week is Customer Service Week in the USA. Since 1992, this week has been a time to honor and celebrate the spirit of customer service in our organizations.

Being a practical sort, I look at something like this and ask myself, how can we get the most from this? What can people do to create some tangible value beyond recognizing the importance of customer service?

So here are 7 things you can do to both honor the spirit of service but also produce something of value for your organization as you celebrate Customer Service Week: