Improving a Service-Oriented Business | The Branding Journal

A company that has a product to sell has an easy time figuring out how to make their product better. There are facts and figures available to them and they are able to make it consistent on their end. For a business that sells a service, like payday loans or personal shoppers, things can get a bit dicey. This is because a service?s quality is rather personal and the evaluation of it is entirely subjective. This can make it troublesome for the inexperienced to find ways to ?upgrade? services. However, that doesn?t mean that this is actually impossible. As the call center industry has shown, it can be done.

The first step is to try and identify just what aspects of the service can be boiled down to metrics that can be objectively measured. For example, do the personnel treat them courteously? Do the representatives show proper empathy to the customer, acknowledging the emotional aspect of their frustration, prior to trying to solve things? Did they get all the required information out of the customer over the course of the contact? Did they, upon completing the call, ask if there was anything else that could be done for the customer? These may seem like little things, but they?re easily turned into metrics in a service business.

For improving the service itself, the same philosophy applies. Look at what is tangible and upgrade it to improve the whole. If the service is a bail bonds chain with multiple branches, look into getting a network established that connects all the records of every branch into a central database. This allows the customer to check on their records and pay off what they owe with any branch, with minimum hassle. A centralized database also speeds up the process, rather than making the customer wait while the personnel call up a different branch to get the relevant details of the account. Try to find aspects of the service that have a physical component and make it better.

Finally, there is always better training. Make sure everyone in the business has been trained to treat the customer courteously and to be respectful, regardless of the situation. Train them in how the service is conducted and attempt to standardize procedures for common instances, as well as have guidelines for how to provide a solution for the more unusual events. The more consistence and quality the experience has, the better the customer?s overall impression.

Source: http://thebrandingjournal.com/business-talks/improving-a-service-oriented-business/

def leppard tim wakefield tim wakefield jacqueline kennedy jacqueline kennedy jackie o john kennedy jr