Customer Service, Quality and Price are the 3 criteria people have when buying a product or a service. Yet, historically, people usually can only have 2 of these 3 criteria satisfied. Which one do you think that they are not willing to give up?
Are you one of those people in business who believe that price is the name of the game? This belief suggests that you are swimming in the Red Ocean as the authors of the Blue Ocean Strategy discussed. Price is usually not the deal breaker. Price becomes the deal breaker when the sales person has failed to do his or her job.
So many people in business are very busy chasing the next sale to lowering their prices that they have forgotten and more than likely do not know the two measurements of business. If they do not know the two measurements of business, then they more than likely do not know the purpose of business? This helps to explain their inability to increase sales.
In business there are only 2 measurements, profits and relationships. And as a reminder the purpose of business is to attract and maintain customers.
This is why customer service is one of the key criteria within the buying selling process because it goes directly back to the purpose of business and is one of the key measurements of business. I truly believe people will even give up some quality (not all quality) if they believe that exceptional customer service will always be present.
Take a moment to think about a recent purchase that you made for your business or yourself. What factors drove you to this decision to make this buy or that buy? Was it quality? Was it customer service? Was it price? You may initially answer price, but if you take the time to reflect the other 2 factors were probably what propelled your decision making process.
In securing a new coaching client, I was interviewed by the President of a large transportation company. He asked me what made me different. Did I respond price? Absolutely not!
My responses focused on customer service that being meeting the needs of the client. In this case it was the organization's needs as voiced through the President and comptroller and the actual needs of the executive being coached. Quality was also discussed because my executive coaching is process driven and embraces a results driven approach. Price never entered the discussion.
Outstanding customer service that builds loyal customers is today's strategic competitive advantage. When your organization has a unified and collective customer loyalty attitude, you will see your overall sales increase from referrals as well as from existing clients. And the added benefit is that you will have a customer service culture of high performance.
