A great deal has been written about customer service and how to build customer loyalty.
In our experience, transparency is the differentiating factor between good and great customer service companies.
Leaders who… make decisions based on what is “right” for the customer, above all other considerations, win customer loyalty in the long-term leading to sustainable bottom-line results.
- Leaders of values-centric cultures do a few key things consistently to ensure good customer service. Some keys for success include:
- Recover at the first opportunity. Sometimes you just have to say, “I’m sorry, I screwed up.”
- Instill customer trust and loyalty by maintaining transparency and keeping communication lines open.
- Develop a real-time customer listening system. Find ways to systematically get timely customer feedback and then commit to taking action on the feedback.
- Cut costs without sacrificing the customer experience.
Customer loyalty exists when values are known and shown.
What can be said for employees can be said for customers. When desirable organization values are clearly demonstrated by leaders both internally and externally it leads to trust and loyalty. JetBlue Airways demonstrated this in 2007 when David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue, sent letters of apology and personally called customers after an unfortunate public event on the tarmac that left travelers stranded for hours. The outcome of that was a JetBlue Customer bill of rights. David Neeleman, JetBlue CEO apology.
The People Ink Model for creating great organizational cultures, prior articles.
Define How You Want Your Culture to be. Values Blue Print.
Hire “A” Players Who Mirror Your Values
Re-recruit your best people daily
