It’s really not that hard – or is it?

I thought I was done with the topic of customer service for a while, but a few conversations and personal experiences over the last few weeks have brought me back around to it.

There’s a message that just isn’t getting through even though it’s really not a difficult one.

The key to customer service is SET EXPECTATIONS AND MEET THEM. Let me say that again. Set expectations with your customers and then MEET them. Don’t set the bar low and deliver high. Don’t exceed your customer’s expectations every time. Don’t hope your customers just won’t bother you.

Set expectations and MEET THEM.

This is harder than it sounds because to set expectations and meet them you have to know what your brand is. You have to really understand what drives the operations of your business. You have to understand the culture of your organisation. You have to pay attention to hiring and training. You have to be willing to say no sometimes.

Much easier to set impossible customer service ideals and make the customer responsible for letting you know when you fail. Easier yet to just bumble along letting customer service be dictated by the person involved each time with no real thought to what or why.

Just like brand is the unique result of each organisation’s beliefs and actions, so too is customer service unique. Sure there are some baseline things that we can probably all agree on – having someone friendly to take your money in a shop, having an online payment arrangement that doesn’t require an hour to complete a transaction – but outside of that, it’s somewhat up for grabs.

When both Ryan Air (basically no service) and Zappos (masses of service) can both get top customer service satisfaction kudos, then there is obviously more to this than the “customer service 101” people would have you believe.

So if you haven’t already read the interview I did a few weeks ago, please do it today – or better yet, listen to the pod cast. It doesn’t have all the answers but after reading it you’ll certainly have a better idea of what questions to ask.

Time and customers are a wasting. And I am not sure how many more times I can say: “Set expectations and MEET them”.

Of course, setting expectations and meeting them isn’t only related to customer service – but that’s another blog.

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.