Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Organizations
Service Excellence in
Organizations
Eight Key Steps to Follow and
Achieve It
Volume I
Fiona Urquhart
Service Excellence in Organizations: Eight Key Steps to Follow and
Achieve It, Volume I
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Keywords
customer delight; brand engagement; service drama; servicescape; cus-
tomer activity cycle; brand authenticity; customer relationship manage-
ment; loyalty; advocacy; partnering; customer lifetime value; touchpoints;
product/service lifecycle; change drivers; innovation; design thinking;
service development; service blueprint; service dominant logic
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction to Service Excellence������������������������������������1
Chapter 2 Entice�����������������������������������������������������������������������������13
Chapter 3 Ensure Quality���������������������������������������������������������������49
Chapter 4 Establish Trust����������������������������������������������������������������69
Chapter 5 Exceeding Customer Needs and Expectations���������������107
Introduction to Service
Excellence
We all know what good service is, don’t we? We certainly know bad ser-
vice when we encounter it, which sadly happens all too often. Bad service
leaves us feeling disappointed, frustrated, and undervalued. The likeli-
hood that we would seek out that experience again is remote, so we do
not return to the company; we feel aggrieved and need to sound off about
it. Time was, we would have done so to a few friends and family (research
says up to 20 people (ACSI survey 1994), and our grievances would
have had a very short half-life. Today, we are more inclined to do our
complaining online, via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or a host of other
social networking sites, or on a personal blog. The potential for damage is
greater than ever; the electronic record, once created, acquires a life of its
own and will come up in searches for years to come. The digital world has
extended the decay of disgruntled customer stories into eternity.
So much for poor customer service; the new kid on the block is ser-
vice excellence. What does that mean from a customer perspective? Well,
outstanding customer service for sure! But, that is a small part of service
excellence. In fact, a better name would be simply excellence. It can apply
to organizations, large and small, and in service or in manufacturing
sectors; it works across all functions and all levels of personnel. Unlike
earlier service and quality initiatives, service excellence blends process
and philosophy and imbues companies that espouse it with a charming
sprinkling of magic dust that makes them a joy to do business with and
creates loyal customers who act as advocates for your organization by tell-
ing friends and family how good you are!
When the words service excellence are mentioned, the usual response
is “Oh, of course, we have been doing that for years, all of our staff have
regular customer service training.” People hear the word service; they miss
the concept of excellence. Yet, there is a world of difference! Customer
2 Service Excellence in Organizations
service is, of course, a vital aspect of excellence, but, in exactly the same
way as advertising is the tip of the marketing iceberg, customer service is
the most visible part of service excellence.
Understanding how to approach service excellence is a bit like know-
ing how to peel an onion; the answer is from the outside-in; conventional
business wisdom always starts by looking at internal capabilities—the
model taught in business schools worldwide and known as a SWOT
analysis is a classic example of this. The S and W are internal strengths
and weaknesses, respectively, and only when these have been explored are
the external opportunities and threats examined. Businesses must look at
themselves from the outside-in, if they are to avoid marketing myopia,
and effectively read the emerging themes in their market. A b etter frame-
work is TOWS, which follows this outside in thinking, taking external
factors into account before then matching internal capabilities to oppor-
tunities and threats.
Most models for excellence look at the organizational approach and
not the customer, and yet, it is the customer who decides which brands
to support, and therefore, it is their perspective that should carry weight.
The organizational perspective tends to be very much a process designed
to assure excellence, and yet, it is quite possible for a very efficient service
process to be a lackluster affair, which fails to delight customers.
Introduction to Service Excellence 3
Service excellence
Strong leadership Extended, close
Customer Culture of initiative & relationship with customer
service creativity Attitude focused on
Segmented customer customer delight
Polite staff approach Knowledge of team
Fulfilled Loyalty & reward deepens customer respect
promises schemes Flexibility extends service
Customer Excellent team offering to cover a wider
focused Product or service range of customer needs
quality
Ensure
quality
Entice
Energise, Excite, Elate
Service
excellence
Embed Extend
Establish
trust Exceeding customer needs
and expectations
References
Bhargava, R. 2008. Personality Not Included. McGraw Hill.
Godin, S. 2011. Poke the Box. Do you Zoom Inc.
Gronroos, C. 2007. Service Management and Marketing. Wiley.
Kim, W.C., and R. Mauborgne. 2010. Blue Ocean Strategy. Barnes & Noble.
Macgregor, D. 1960. The Human Side of Enterprise. New York, NY. McGraw
Hill.
Mercer, D. 1988. Marketing Strategy: The Challenge of the External Environment.
The Open University.
Morgan, G. 1988. Riding the Cutting Edge of Change. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Ouchi, W.G. 1981. Theory Z: How American Business can Meet the Japanese
Challenge. Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.
Index
Note: ‘f ’ after page number refers to figure and ‘t ’ after page number refers to
table.