Defining Customer Service

How do you define customer service? There are indeed many ways to define customer service, but they are generally defided in to two catagories. Customer service as defined by business and customer service as it is defined by the customer.

In a business context customer is defined as an expence and is ofn limited to basic servces in terms of cost allocated o sales generation. In other words it is a function of the sales cycle or sales process most often defined by the marketing dpeartment. Even in the event that there is customer serice rpresentative the trms and policies are still determined by the support of the sales cycle.

In terms of the customer experience, customer service is defned by the customer. Now, true every customer is different, but the service can be defined by customer segmentation or groups. When the customer defies the terms of service it is independent of the sales process and is need focus. shifting away from the sales cycles and sales drivers.

Wich is better? It depends on the focus of the business and organisation that uses it, but if you are truly customer centered you will define your customer service and subsequent policies by the later. This applies to all sizes of business and organizations.

How are u defining customer service is it bringing you closer to your customers or pushing ou farther away?

As always we invite you to share your comments and feedback.

For more information on customer service or customer experience management we invite you to visit"The Customer Development Center

It's not Just Customer Service

The old year is passing and with it one of the most maddening weeks of the year for most retail businesses regardless of the country. For B2B businesses it’s a week of slow downs key people on vacation and year in quotas hanging in jeopardy. The auditors, business owners, and accountants are cranking it up trying to get a head start on closing out the month and year and books, and on top of that a barrage of bargain hunting customers are trying the patience of the most forgiving of customer reps and clerks.

To help in this maddening world of business it is still very important to focus on the customer. Why? First of all they do pay the bills. It is in the customer that we find the reason to keep the doors open and hope for our future. With this in mind the idea of customer service isn't enough. Being polite, smiling, gracious, courteous, helpful and a host of other adjectives aren’t going to bring the house down. Customer service is only a part of a larger picture as well as is marketing, and branding. They are all pieces of the "Customer Experience".

It is in the creating and maintaining of the customers experience both direct and indirect with the business or company that in the end wins the day. Not just in the purchasing process but in all aspects of any given business process that impact on the customer. So, in the New Year to come, let’s move beyond the realm of customer service. Let us move into the creating and management of the customer experience. It is here that loyalty develops and the true return on and business or company capital is made.

We are just a few days away from the reflection on the past year performances the consideration of New Years resolutions. Let’s remake the way we do business and deal with our customers, one that will define us and separate us from the pack. Let us look beyond the realm of customer service to truly serve our clients/customers and look at the development of and the management of the customer experience.


As always we invite your comments.

For more informatioin on the Customer experience please visit "The Customer Development Center"

It's Happened

We have been inducted into the "Incredible Hall of Acclaim" . This is awarded to people who take writing about customer service seriously and contribute to the on going piles of information that every business owner and manager should read but seldom gets around to it.

We have been inducted along with the likes of Seth Goodin, one of the worlds great marketers. Thank you Maria Palma the founder of . "The Customers Always Right" blog and of the "Incredible Hall of Acclaim" award.

Of course we will wear this distinction with pride and honor.

We welcome your comments as always.

For more information on customer service and the customer experience we recommend that you visit "The Customer development Center"

Carnival of Customer Service

In the area of customer srvice , true customer service, the path is filled with land mines and road blocks and of course the misleading phylosophies of customer srvice out there that come from many of the self proclaimed gurus of customer service and marketing. However, I have come to respect and share many different views with Glenn Ross over at Allbusiness.com His insights are solid and timely.

Glenn this week is hosting "The Carnival on Customer Service". Sharing many various points of value from his insight and those of others. Stop in, take a look, it's worth the effort. There is much to learn in the customer service arena and The Carnival is a good place to start.

As always you are invited to leave your comments

For more information on Customer Service and Customer Experience Management join us at "The Customer Development Center

What Do Customers Expect? - Customer Service

In the on going battle to bring business from the dark ages into the 21st century of customer centered services the defining of what a customer wants has come down to the tug of war between the conceptual idealization of the marketing departments and consultants and that of the customers themselves.

Even in the most forthright of customer service blogs and articles customer service ideologist have been mislead by the marketing world into identifying marketing concepts as customer service ideologies and concepts, even to the point of re-labeling traditional marketing jargon to quack like a duck, however underneath the quack there ain’t no waddle. Businesses need to be careful of being mislead in the area of customer service and expectations.

It is of the greatest importance that businesses understand the direct relationship between customer service and customer expectations in the terms of the customer not in the terms of the marketing traditionalist. Until businesses can do that and understand how to integrate it they will never win the hearts of their potential customers and loyalty as elusive as it is will always be a fleeting fancy.

We invite any and all comments.

For more information on customer service and the customer experience please visit "The Customer Development Center"

Customer Expectations

There is much to be said about what your customer’s expectations are and what are the customer’s expectations as defined by a given business? Meikah at Customer Service, Global Watch has started to take a few swings at this. It’s worth the reading.

However what she has signaled out is the customer expectation from a business perspective as defined by good marketing. Is this wrong? Actually its ok as long as you are careful to meld what the customers really expect from a business or product with the business defined perceptions. In the list cited by Meikah the focus is on creating emotional triggers that move the customer to making a purchase.


This is good right? Yes and no, in most all cases. It appeals to the emotional instincts of the buyer but doesn't really address expectations and often more than not leaves the customer empty. Think about it, how many times have u gone into a store or restaurant and felt let down by the expected experience, or bought a product and felt left holding less than what your expectations were. And this applies to B2B businesses and products or services as well.

Perhaps defining expectations should be done differently.

We invite your comments as always

For more information on customer srvice adn customer experience management please visit The Customer Development Center

What Do Your Employees Reflect

I walked into a small shop yesterday that sold a variety of things to do with gaming, computers etc, but this could have been any store large or small by the way. I walked in and looked around to identify a clerk in order to inquire about some specific product. There were perhaps 15 other customers in the store and it was impossible to tell them from the floor clerk if in fact thee was one.

Next I went over to the checkout counter and there sitting behind there counter were two employees hard at work on what seemed to be there lunch and immersed in a deep conversation. I stood there for up ward of 2 to 3 minutes before they looked at me. They then very sharply said "talk to the floor clerk. We have one". I said I don't see one out there would you point him out to me. At this the young lady said "he's in the corner go look", and turned back to her food as though i wasn't there. Hmmm, I thought, and of course I couldn't let it go so I forced them to stop eating and answer my question. Well I didn't buy anything and left.

In reflection I concluded that the store had no customer service policy let along standardization for employee behavior. Employees should never eat at the counter in front of the customers, it's first of all rude and it sends to your customers a message that says they are not important. All employees should of had well marked name tags or clothing or both in order to be identified easily. Third, and last in this observation the employees needed to be trained in how to address the customers and how to put the customer first.

The said thing here is that this situation is prevalent in small B2C businesses. It also happens in B2B more often than u would like to think. Especially with office staff when a customer walks in unexpected. These behaviors and lack of training have explicit negative reflections on the business and the customer’s perception of that business and its brand.

We invite your open comments as always.

For more information on customer service and managing the customer experience join us at "Customer Development center

Customer Expectations vs Business Policy

It never stops to amaze me how businesses especially small ones develop business policies without relating their outcomes to direct customer service results. For instance I walked into a hardware store the other day and wanted to make $145.00 purchase. No big deal right? Well it certainly ended up as one. They don't take credit cards only cash or debit cards.

Never the less I pursued this with the store manager. First, I didn't bring enough cash. Second, it is a business deductible charge so I want it on my Visa card. Well the company policy was set up so that the hardware store would not have to loose that extra small percentage of a purchase that credit card companies charge for the privilege of them bring more business into the store. Big mistake, especially since their competition takes Visa and other cards. The manager offered no recourse, not even a feed back channel to higher decision makers, which was another big mistake in the creation of a good customer experience.


Such decisions forces customers to comply with a company policy that is not company friendly which creates really bad feelings in the customer. Second of all it pushes business to the competing businesses. "True Customer Service" meets the needs of the customer including formatting business policies to enhance that customer service experience. Needles to say, I went to the competitors and bought with my Visa. Hey guys earning 100% of nothing is still 0%. 90% or 60% of something is still money in the bank and a happy customer.

As always we invite your comments and ideas.

For more information on customer service and the customer experience please visit
"The Customer Development Center

Its all in the way They see it

Fist I want to thank all those who patiently returned time after time even without consistent material being here to read. I had been quite ill and this blog was somewhat out of reach. So Thank you and I'm back.

As business owners and managers we get so caught up in what we do every day that we forget one simple and very basic principle. It's not how we see the business or how the marketers claim they not the needs of the focus market or how much the sales people think they own the customer. It is in reality how the customer sees us.

Ever have a conversation with someone and no matter what we say they think they no what we will say next or they are off in some mind zone not even connected to what we are saying. Well in a recent poll the findings show that a very large segment of customers in B2B and the B2C retail markets think that is how they are treated by small and large businesses.

Maybe we should not look at how much we build the team, but in how good our listening skills are.

As always we invite your comments.

If you would like more information on customer service and the customer experience please visit "The Customer Development Center

Some Days Just Dont Add Up

In the grand scheme of things sometimes what we do seems quite insignificant. Maybe its because we felt that we were in the drivers seat and the world was ours or perhaps we just get to much of ourselves being the all important manager or the owner of a flourishing business. It really doesn't matter how, but it does matter that when we do. And when we do our resulting behavior destroys the very business that we are trying to build.

Yea, this is about customer service. When we fail to see the importance of the customer, we simply forget to put them first. It seems that we forget to care about why they are buying our products or services in the first place, we forget to see the things that we and our business does in their terms, we forget allot of things including how to be kind to our customers. In fact we really forget much more.

So before you think that your so hot remember that without the customer you ain’t got nothin at all. By the way this also includes your employees.

We encourage you to leave your comments and value your thoughts.


For more informationon customer service and the customer experience please visit "The Customer Development Center