“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude”. – Colin Powell
The power of choice can never be overemphasized – this is what customers have now, more than ever. They have choices not just in products, services and prices but additionally between the companies present in the market. Companies cannot hope to win or even survive by competing on these particular aspects and they must think of smarter ways to build a loyal customer base. The ‘edge’ is creating and sustaining a culture of service excellence, which would reflect in everything that the company did. It would allow the companies to live up to the ever increasing and changing expectations of customers by creating value for them. Focusing on a culture of service excellence would mean also that the company would treat its employees well – since they are the ones who make the company run. Happy employees are more willing to create unique and pleasant customer experiences, which in turn translates to higher profits and more durable and robust relationships with customers. Such relationships cement and take on the face of customer loyalty and enhanced profitability – cutting edge advantages for any company.
As companies realize the huge benefits and advantages of a culture of service excellence, they have begun to put in place strategies and policies that focus on indefatigable memorable customer experiences to keep customers engaged. Creating and sustaining a culture of service excellence makes a company stand out and differentiate itself from the ‘crowded and noisy marketplace’. In addition, focusing on a culture of service excellence means that the entire company would view customer service as their responsibility and will take every step to motivate and reward employees that consistently demonstrate these values not just to customers externally but also with their co-workers. For any culture and practice to be successful, it must first gain precedence and be seen as ‘valuable’ within the company. Internally, a culture of service excellence translates to a better and happier workplace. Employees become and remain engaged and motivated and strive to perform consistently well. With high productivity despite low supervision and minimum resources, a company saves huge costs, gains market reputation and is further able to attract superior talent, investors and more customers.
It is not a secret that the culture of a company is hugely important since it defines a company and can be the reason for its success or failure. Linked to this is the fact that customers are the prime reason a company is in business – combine the two and a company can be almost sure of gaining huge profits and success. A culture of service excellence would keep each person within the company aligned to the common goals of the company and trumping competitors would be routine. When the entire company shares the same values, vision and focuses on the same goals, achieving targets and making better decisions is no longer an arduous task. It is safe to say that by fostering a culture of service excellence, a company would serve its customers well, who in turn would give them more business and attract additional business for it. People united and pulling their strength in a single direction are always stronger and can reach their goals sooner than those who are undecided and directionless. Building and sustaining a culture of service excellence is the direction that companies need in today’s competitive business environment.
In order to sustain a culture of service excellence, it is not tough to know that it must flow from the company’s leadership. We have mentioned previously that employees emulate their leaders and if the leadership displays service excellence, the employees too will develop and sustain a mind-set of service and customer satisfaction. Many companies spend huge amounts and invest a lot of time in training its employees to develop a culture of service excellence. However, simply imparting training is never enough – the leaders must encourage and support the learning by displaying service excellence in all that they do. Training can only help employees to know how and what to do, however to sustain this knowledge, there must be an environment conducive to enhancing it. This is why the role of leadership in building and sustaining a culture of service excellence is crucial and must be clearly understood and practiced.
Most companies have a pre-existing culture and given that the affinity towards service has surged now, it would be difficult for a company to change its culture with that of a culture of service excellence if it is not determined to serve customers well. Unlearning and undoing of a company’s culture is not an easy task but in order to survive and be successful it is imperative for a company to adopt and adapt to a culture of service excellence – which could be different from its existing mind-set. If a company’s culture already supports service to customer as a priority, a culture of service excellence would still be required in order to keep pace with the ever-rising bar of customer service – set by customer expectations. As indicated previously, how customers view the customer service provided by a company is highly subjective – based on each customer’s individual experiences. However, with a sustained culture of service excellence, each customer would have similar pleasant and memorable interactions, ensuring that the ‘vote is unanimous’ on the subject of great customer service.
As companies become global and employ ‘diversity’ in its ranks, it becomes even more crucial to ensure that despite the differences all employees embrace the culture of service excellence and demonstrate it in all their interactions. It is the duty of the company and its leadership to communicate clearly why such a mind-set and culture is critical and continue to monitor the level of readiness on the part of the employees to build and sustain this culture. In order to ensure that your employees are amenable to working within such a culture, it would be prudent to hire people with such a mind-set and those that may have worked in companies with a similar culture. It is a lot simpler for them to adapt. In order to ‘convert’ the existing employees, awareness and sensitization would be required through training, coaching and other exercises to keep up the momentum. As employees see the benefits for the company and themselves, the level of engagement will rise and people will be encouraged to build and sustain a culture of service excellence that will make the company’s customers happy leading to greater heights of success for the company and its employees.
As employees begin demonstrating their commitment towards service excellence, the next step would be for the company to ensure that this ‘behaviour’ is encouraged. Encouragement and reinforcement should come in the form of a formal reward and recognition program. Spot recognition and larger rewards for consistently display of service excellence will firmly inculcate it as a habit and mind-set. Without such ‘cementing’ it is very possible that in the buzz of business activities, employees cut corners and fall short of service excellence and over time, this culture is completely wiped out.
It is common knowledge that change is always difficult and the normal behaviour of humans towards change is one of resistance. Hence, affecting a culture of service excellence would be a change from the normal course of action and could face opposition. In order to successfully implementing this difference, it would be necessary to be prepared for such obstacles and before changing anything must let each person in the company know why it is being done and how it will benefit them. Getting ‘buy-in’ is crucial such that no such obstacles stand in the path of building a culture of service excellence. It is the responsibility of the leaders to prevent and remove such roadblocks by serving as role models for service excellence. By bringing everyone together, each person would take responsibility and do their bit with enthusiasm to build and sustain a culture of service excellence for long-term success.
