Servicism

In Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) “Service” is defined as follows: “The act of serving; the performance of labour for the benefit of another”. Aaaah – “for the benefit of another”. Remarkable, because…

Everybody takes service for granted when buying something. Either from the local shop buying a chewing gum for 50p or from the company where the car is bought or from the company you buy an item costing US$ 1,000,000.

Service is a strange thing. Everyone agree that service is important. Excellent service that is. Mediocre service you get everywhere – almost. Most of us also agree to the fact that excellent service leads to increasing revenue and better margins.

Isn’t it strange that there still need to be many more people striving to purposefully deliver excellent service?

Excellent service is about dealing with someone who understands what our need is. The next step is then to deliver the products which will suit our needs in a perfect way either it is cloths, a hair-cut, a new car or some rather complex computer service.

Make it as simple and easy as possible for the customers, make the customer well assured that you understand the customer’s needs and that you master your field. If you on top of that give the customer an experience which is far above expectations, you will have a friend (& a customer) for life. The positive result may be that the customer is coming back to you next time he wants to buy more of the same product, and he may even tell his friends about it. And still, there’s less expensive keeping an old customer than finding a new customer. Why cannot more people regardless of their position in their company understand that?

…and what if the customer tells all his friends about how badly he was treated when being in contact with YOUR company? That is really a pain in the …!

An article in the Norwegian business paper Dagens Næringsliv tells us that customers are not loyal to their suppliers anymore. Why is that? Is it because the suppliers are having bad products? Or is it because the suppliers have bad staff members? Is it because the service the customers is given is too poor? Probably. The Swedish furniture company IKEA, which usually is known for its non-expensive and rather poor quality furniture, is one of the companies who have a good grip on their customers. Probably because this company in its internal marketing is focusing on making good customer relations through excellent service. The Director of Pr & Information at IKEA Norge AS, Camilla Lindemann, tells “Dagens Næringsliv” that there are three matters which have an impact on how IKEA works. Those are “The Total Experience of shopping at IKEA”, “The Desire of the Customer to make further shopping at IKEA” and “Will the customer recommend IKEA to her friends?” “These are the matters which lead to customer loyalty”, she says, “Satisfaction and loyalty are stuck together.” Why do not every staff member in whatever position understand that.

Marketing is about “Catching and Keeping Customers”. Any company using that definition on marketing will make sure that everybody in its staff will understand that whatever they do towards a customer has an impact on how the customer looks at the company with regards to its products and its level of service. Every one at any company is a part of “The Total Experience of shopping at the company”. Final.

“People remember the quality long after they’ve forgotten the price” (Quoted from Gapingvoid). This is a rather important observation. The consequence of this is of course that giving your customer excellent service makes the customer accept paying a higher price for your products. Not a bad thing – is it?

So, what is it to be done? From a company’s eye of view, make sure that every staff member clearly understands the impact on which excellent service has on any customer. And of course what impact poor service or none service at all has on the customer. From a customer’s eye of view, make sure to tell each and every company who treat you in a bad way or make you feel that you are not a valued customer, that you do not want to be their customer anymore – and act upon it by buying your products from another company tomorrow.

This article is based on an article (“Service is dead – long live the Service”) in the Norwegian business newspaper Dagens Næringsliv of April 20, 2005 and is written by Roy Dahl, General Manager of the Norwegian distributor  company of BioDegradable Packaging; NorSing AS