Several years ago, one of my clients asked me to put together a special workshop to help his employees increase the quality of their customer service delivery. I told him that the single best way to figure what it would take to deliver consistently superior customer service was to ask the customers, so we invited a small group of the company’s very top customers to serve on a special “customer advisory panel.”
We then put together an event where we gathered the entire company (67 people) so they could listen to exactly what the customer panel had to say. The results were amazing! As my client’s employees sat on the edge of their seats, key decision makers from their seven biggest customers (representing nearly 70 percent of the company’s annual revenues) spent more than two hours offering feedback. They discussed what they loved about the customer service they were receiving, and they also explained what frustrated them. They talked about precisely what my client’s people would need to do to deliver the kind of service that would make customers spend more money and increase their loyalty.
In nearly 20 years of running training workshops, this was one of the most powerful, motivating sessions I have ever had the pleasure of leading. By the end of the day, all the employees felt they truly understood what they needed to do to deliver the outstanding customer service that would grow the company and protect their jobs because the customers outlined three very specific things they wanted: more communication, at least three price options to pick from (and no, they did not always pick the lowest) and no surprises…deliver what you promise, when you promise it, at the price you promise. They told my client that if his company could deliver these three things consistently, they would increase their orders by 30 percent — and they did!
Interestingly, it was also just as motivating and rewarding for the customers who served on the panel. All of them said this was the very first time one of their vendors had invited them to share these sorts of issues in open forum, and they appreciated it. A true win-win for all involved.
How can you apply this idea to your business?
Maybe this sort of customer panel is a perfect way for you to open the lines of communication with your customers and learn what it will take to consistently meet and even exceed their expectations. Maybe your company isn’t quite as big and instead you simply need to invite two or three of your top customers to offer explicit feedback over lunch. Whatever route you take, the important thing is to listen to the person whose opinion matters most. As Mark Twain so beautifully put it, “The only critic whose opinion counts…is the customer.”
Let’s face it, many — if not most — products and services are becoming commoditized, or at least, they are becoming a commodity in the minds of many customers. It is my firm belief that there are only two true differentiators left to a lot of companies: The quality of the people you can get, grow and keep on your team, and the relationships they create with the customer through delivering consistently superior customer service.