Define your service principles & make your customer happy

[jrineakter]

How do I best serve our residents? How do I make my customer incredibly happy – in every possible way? What kind of host or hostess should our employees be? Many organizations think carefully about customer friendliness, but then what? Formulating a vision and strategy is the first step. But it only really works if service and customer focus are in the genes of all employees in an organization. One of the tools to achieve this is drawing up service principles.


Bad service out of the world
Everyone wants to eliminate bad service from the world. Because we are all consumers, citizens, customers. We all want to be helped well and have our questions answered. And feel happy about it. So we don't want to offer bad service in our own organizations either. But where do you start to get your vision and conviction around excellent service and great customer experiences up and running, and then between the ears of all employees? How do you anchor customer focus in the DNA of the organization?

These kinds of issues affect the culture, the way of management, the tasks, roles and responsibilities of departments and teams, the norms and values ​​of individual employees, the type of organization, the changes that organizations have already experienced (or: 'have to endure', as is often sighed). And indeed, there is work to be done on all these aspects.

Start small
As I write this, I can almost feel the courage that is slowly sinking in your shoes about the magnitude of this challenge through the screen. It almost seems impossible, right? Yes, it does, don't be afraid. My motto: start small. And, as a wise old manager of mine once said, get the basics in order first. One of the first steps you take, in addition to formulating a vision and strategy (more on that later), is defining service principles.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Service Principles
Van Dale calls a principle a basic rule, a fundamental principle. This blog by Livework studio sublimely explains the concept of service principles. In essence, it comes down to this: well-designed service principles provide organizations or teams with starting points and direction for new initiatives. But they can also help to recalibrate existing processes: does everything we do, make and convey for our customer meet these principles?

Customer satisfactionIt is super important that the 'voice of the customer' is reflected in these principles: because with good service principles you offer more results for the customer, and indirectly also for the organization. It ensures a fundamental way of customer-oriented thinking: with everything you do, you test your actions against the service principles. In this way you always think about what creates value for your customer.

Determining Service Principles: 4 Steps
How do you determine your service principles? With the right people and the right mindset . You have to be convinced that the organization wants to act completely service-oriented. And then think about where your opportunities and challenges lie as an organization. And then write down what you stand for. It has to be realistic, but may also have an ambitious character. Proceed as follows:

Step 1
Organize a session with the key people in your organization. Unless you are one of the few who work in a holacratic organization , or if you are completely self-directed – in which case you have to do it yourself. Assuming you work in a traditionally organized organization: gather managers, bosses and directors.

Step 2
Ask them what service and customer focus mean to them. Is it setting up a customer contact center? Is it having account managers call people back? Is it expressed in a task-oriented website with flawless form functioning? Discuss and distill, so that you get a shared image and unity of language.

Step 3
5090781_lWrite down all the elements that you think make service excellent and all the elements of customer focus on a brown paper, whiteboard or flipchart sheet and hang them in plain sight. This way you keep the elements constantly in mind.

Step 4
Then 'hang above' that: if these are the elements according to us, what does that say about how we want to work? Start with the basics - start with 'why' ('No, not even more Simon Sinek !', I hear you think. Yes, because he has a point!): what do we stand for? What are our principles? What is the basis for everything that has to do with australia telegram number list service provision? What can we promise our customers or residents? In short: what are our service principles?

Formulate a maximum of 10 statements together (but preferably less) that make clear what your organization stands for. If necessary, provide some explanation, but keep it as concise and sharp as possible. The more explanation, the more room for nuance, and therefore for interpretation - and that is exactly what you don't want too much of.

Examples of service principles
To help you get started with this way of thinking, I looked up a few examples of companies that have set clear service principles. These are examples of design or service principles as I have now found them online. Yes, many in English, because on Dutch soil it is apparently rare to have service principles, or to communicate them.