Does Your Senior Leadership Deliver Great Customer Service?

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When it comes to certain areas of your business, it’s easy to know that a long-term plan is necessary and must be implemented with buy-in and involvement from senior staff. Such areas may include research and developments, company growth, and sales strategies, for example. However, when it comes to customer service, most companies fail to see the importance of a long-term plan that involves senior leadership.

Real world story: In a recent article in Customer Experience Magazine, Rollo Grayson discusses the importance of senior leaders in the customer experience. In this insightful article, Grayson points out three major areas in which such leaders are a necessary part of a company’s service delivery strategies.

Strategies that Turn it Around:

1. Recognize value: Without value there is no motivation. So the first step you need to take is to ensure that your senior leaders recognize the value of great customer service. Happy customers translate to returning customers. And returning customers are loyal customers who tell others about you. And in any business, the cost of acquiring new customers is always an expensive venture. So why not grow your company with the loyal customers you already have and who rave about you? And yes, exceptional customer service is one way to accomplish this goal.
2. Accountability: Without motivation there is no progress. So the second step is to hold senior leaders accountable for the delivery of great customer service. Holding people accountable is a great motivator. And this includes planning and training of senior leaders to know your service brand, the unique qualities of your service delivery that make you stand out from your competition. With accountability, you will motivate your senior leaders to be brand ambassadors for everyone else in your organization to strive to emulate.
3. Ongoing commitment: Without a long-term plan there is no consistency. So senior leaders must buy into and commit to your long-term customer service strategies. Without buy-in or commitment, your momentum will slow and eventually wither. You must consider your customer service program as a living, breathing organism. As such, it must be tended to and encouraged to blossom. Senior leaders, therefore, must make the conscious decision to commit to the long haul and to continue to nurture and grow your customer service strategies.

Remember: You have long-term plans for many aspects of your business, but do you have one for how you will deliver great service with the help of your senior leaders?

What do YOU do to ensure that everyone in your company is part of delivering exceptional service—from the company president all the way down the line?