Even with an improved economic outlook, businesses face the magnified goal of building and retaining customer loyalty. It’s a harder, costlier fight to attract new customers compared to keeping existing ones. A loyal, longtime customer is valuable at any time – but even more so in today’s economic climate.
This article focuses on Key No. 3: Customers experience each defining moment in three dimensions of service in the contact center (the human, business and hidden dimensions). Obviously, the main reason a customer comes to an organization is to do business. But the customer experience is much more complex than that. Both the customer and the service provider have three kinds of needs that must be anticipated in order to earn customer loyalty. These are addressed in three dimensions—the business dimension, the human dimension and the hidden dimension.
The Business Dimension
Need prompts the customer to seek your service. An organization that fails to satisfy the customer’s need stands to lose that customer. However, meeting that need fully and quickly helps create positive defining moments and helps build customer loyalty. Your organization also has business needs that must be met during every transaction. Balancing both sets of needs, the customer’s and the organization’s, is a big challenge in achieving stellar service experiences. This defines the business dimension.
The Human Dimension
Every customer requires respect, understanding and individual attention in addition to the tactical completion of the business transaction. Your employees’ skills in the human dimension help you meet those needs—sometimes with a cheerful “hello” and sometimes by defusing an angry outburst. You, too, have human needs during a service interaction, such as courtesy and recognition of your expertise.
The Hidden Dimension
Much of what an organization does is hidden from customers. Sometimes that behind the scenes work like following internal policies and procedures, collaborating with co-workers or bending the rules to solve a customer’s problem can make or break a service interaction. These “hidden” skills support your performance with the customer. Leaders in the organization have more influence over the hidden dimension than anyone who works for them, so there is a special accountability that is inherent in their role. Recognize, too, that a customer’s hidden dimension—events or attitudes unknown to you—can affect a service interaction. Even though this dimension may not be readily evident, you can learn to recognize cues that will guide your service to each customer. Service providers who manage and link all three dimensions of service create positive defining moments that help the organization earn loyalty.
Never forget that customers have choices. Rarely are products and services so vastly different or unique that an organization is immune to competition. What causes customers to choose one product or service over another is the way they feel about the product and how they feel they are treated by the organization. This is particularly evident in the demand today for stellar service and its impact on building customer loyalty. Regardless of changes and multiple demands on an organization, one constant driver of maximizing sales and market share is the daily delivery of stellar service that not only meets customers’ expectations, but exceeds them.
Organizations must deliver the same level of customer service (creating positive defining moments) to every individual customer. These service concepts and skills apply to all personal interactions. Whether interacting face-to-face, by phone, in print or online, every customer should experience positive defining moments in the form of specific service expectations in all three dimensions of service. In order to illustrate this point further, a distinction must be made between services and service.
How is that accomplished? We’ll talk about that in our final installment in this series, Key No. 4: Creating positive defining moments in every personal interaction builds a culture of service.
