Set Clear, Realistic Expectations, Then Exceed Them!
Employees of excellent companies will make it their mission to impress their customers in unexpected and helpful ways.
I recently ordered photographic prints from a lab but missed the deadline by an hour. It was entirely my fault. I didn't pay attention to the time. As a result, I was mentally prepared to inform my customer that he would receive his order a day late. However, to my surprise, the prints arrived the next morning. That's what I call excellent customer service.
Richard Branson succinctly observed, "The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways."
Companies that set clear, realistic expectations and whose employees strive to exceed them enjoy a significant, practically unbeatable competitive advantage because of two things:
These businesses deeply understand their internal processes and know how long each step usually takes.
These organizations embrace a culture of going beyond the expected minimum.
Understand Your Processes
Admittedly, business process design is less glamorous than developing an advertising campaign or discussing branding or web design.
Instead, determining the detailed steps to fulfill a customer order involves dealing with the nuts and bolts of an organization. That can include all kinds of incompatible and outdated software. Additionally, lingering cross-departmental challenges could create a set of obstacles that require unnecessary workarounds in an otherwise straightforward workflow, potentially slowing it down significantly.
If you want your organization to consistently exceed your customers' expectations, all management levels must understand the inner workings of your company and be willing to remove all obstacles that could hinder an efficient workflow.
Go Beyond the Expected Minimum
Companies that foster a culture of excellence allow their employees to make small ad hoc decisions that increase customer satisfaction. An order still being processed after the deadline or the unbureaucratic help when a customer messes something up are examples of daily situations in which these employees often go above and beyond the expected minimum.
In my experience, an organization's level of excellence becomes evident in a crisis when a customer encounters a problem and depends on an employee's kindness and care to help solve it.
Employees of excellent companies will make it their mission to impress that customer in unexpected and helpful ways. I was one of those customers and genuinely grateful for their excellence.
