It is hard for me to believe that it has been 20 years since I first read the book Total Customer Service: The Ultimate Weapon. As a young manager overseeing groups of people responsible for dispatching technicians completing hundreds customer service requests per day across New England, I found the book powerful. It provided validation of the dynamic that I witnessed unfold each day as successful customer interactions both helped to retain customers and grow the revenue produced through positive customer experiences.
Later in my career as I moved from the back office into the field to manage teams of technicians I saw how the six-point plan devised by the authors William H. Davidow and Bro Uttal held both insight into successes and highlighted great opportunities to improve. For instance, I saw first hand how the design of products and services impacted the ability to deliver customer service and how that performance impacted the company’s relationships with customers. I clearly observed how motivated and trained employees created powerful customer retention. I validated a direct relationship between increased revenue and the customer service metrics demonstrated by my top performers.
Thought leaders including Bruce Temkin, of Forrester Research, have joined the ongoing sprit expressed in the Ultimate Weapon. In his free downloadable eBook The 6 Laws of Customer Experience, Mr. Temkin’s own six layer plan adds sophistication to the discussion. While reaffirming: the importance of employee empowerment, the need for customer service metrics to be a key performance indicator and the need for executive level commitment as tenets of the earlier work, Mr. Temkin takes the model deeper by delving into other aspects including the psychology of the experience of the customer.
In Law Number One Temkin cleverly echoes Newton’s Law of Motion by stating, “Every Interaction Creates a Personal Reaction.” Mr Temkin’s law points out the importance of the context in pleasing customers. What works for one individual may be inappropriate for another and performance against each customer’s individual set of expectations is the yardstick of success.
The most important point may be the bottom line of Rule Number Six, “If you’re not committed to customer experience, you can only fool yourself.” Temkin says, “No matter how much money you spend on advertising, you can’t convince customers that you provide better experiences than you do.”
Real value delivered through the experience, not promises, are what counts.
Customer service is somewhat like the air we breathe. We often don’t notice it until, fair or foul, someone warms up last night’s leftovers for their lunch in the office microwave.
Mr. Davidow and Mr. Uttal pointed out the often overlooked element of organizational value: Organizations that refine the atmosphere with superior customer service excel.
Mr. Temkin has shown that if you want to make people’s mouths water, you’d better be warming up their particular favorite cuisine and be serving appropriately sized portions.
