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Many businesses pour time and money into service improvement programs – only to end up disappointed by the results. Worse, leaders often learn the wrong lesson – that investing in service is too expensive.
But here’s the real problem: It’s not how much you’re investing—it’s WHERE you’re investing.
Service is about taking action to create value for someone else. But if the person you’re serving doesn’t value that action, you haven’t created value… you’ve created WASTE.
So, what’s the solution? t’s not to throw in the towel on service improvements!
Instead, make sure your efforts target the areas of your business that truly matter to your customers.
When you make investments that create real value, the rewards will follow: more revenue, more efficiency, happier customers, more customer loyalty, and greater market share.
Watch this clip from Ron’s keynote address at the 2024 Service Council symposium to discover how you can focus your efforts.
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Below is an Autogenerated Transcript
What is service?
Service is taking action to create value for someone and uplifting service is taking the next action to create more value for someone you care about. Woohoo. Fast learners. Yeah, now there’s a problem. Different people value different things. True. Like, you’ll have some customers who say, “I just want the cheapest possible solution” and you’ll have somebody else who says, “No, no, no, I’m happy to pay more, but what am I going to get for that?” Yeah. You’ll have some who say, “Give to me fast” and others will say, “Don’t rush me. I want to make this decision with a lot of thought and time.” Right. Some are going to say to me, say to you, “I want to know every solution. Explain the whole thing to me.” Others will say, “Just help me make a good choice.”
So when different people value different things, we’ve also got to have a way of explaining to our people- How do you think about the value that we’re creating for that someone else, for that customer, for that internal colleague? And sometimes what they value is just get it right. Give me what it is that I actually need. Provide for me what we call the primary product and give it to me at a good price. Sometimes what they’re more concerned about is the flexibility of the delivery system. Do I have more variety in terms of time? Can I stage the delivery? Another category, which is the one that most people think about when they hear the word service, is just are you nice people? Most people, when they hear the word service, they think of a waiter in a restaurant. And they’re not wrong. But the only category that they’re looking at is the one we call the service mindset, or the attitude, the friendly, the smile, the tone of voice.
But then you’ve got a fourth category, which is to what extent are you just trying to close a deal or close a ticket, or complete a project? Or are you actually looking out for me today and onwards into the future? Like, are we actually building a relationship with each other? And different people value different things, and even the same person can value something different at different situations or different moments of time.
