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“If you don’t take care of your customers, someone else will.”

Commonly stated by corporate sales trainers.

I say it with tongue in cheek that every business at some point comes to realize that their main focus must be to satisfy their customers. This goes for manufacturing companies, the service industry, retail stores, nonprofit organizations and government agencies, as well as everyone in each of their divisions, departments and branch offices. Customer service is beyond policies and procedures: it is about what takes place during interactions with customers. For example, imagine a situation where you are the customer. How courteous was the sales person in answering your questions? How long did it take for someone to answer the phone or were you put on hold indefinitely? It may also refer to the identifiable, but sometimes intangible, activities undertaken by a company in conjunction with the basic goods and services it sells.

The elements of good customer service are not hard to determine. A simple brainstorm with a corporate sales team came up with the following list of quality factors:

•Meeting/exceeding someone’s needs, going above and beyond

•Building trust and rapport

•Paying attention

•Defusing the stress or anger in a situation

•Identifying the real issues

•Anticipating, being proactive

•Having an investment in the outcome and the relationship

•Putting yourself in someone else’s place

•Following-up/following-through

•Doing what you say you are going to do

•Coming to a successful resolution

Beyond the immediate outcomes of an exchange between organizations and clients, is the concept of the total customer experience. This speaks to the overall impression of the product based on the client’s exchanges and experiences with people, products, services and solutions in acquiring and using that product. Organizations need to manage that customer experience carefully.

Customer experience management, or CEM, has been defined as “the process of strategically managing a cus-tomer’s entire experience with a product or a company.” CEM highlights the notion that beyond the sale organizations need to truly understand what it means to create value for their customers, as well as an excellent customer experience.

This requires the following.

•Understanding best practices and the practices of your competition

•Developing a comprehensive approach to solutions

•Delivering high value to the customer

•Producing internal consistency across the corporation

•Meeting customer expectations for both processes and outcomes

•Offering flexibility of products and services to respond to clients’ needs

CEM includes three steps. The first is discovering the clients’ expectations. What do they have in mind and what is their desired outcome? The second is shaping services and products to meet client expectations. After all, the customer is always right. The third is making sure the customer is satisfied. Has the product or service met client expectations and how do you know?

For customer experience management to be effective, your approach must be comprehensive.

•Adapting to the needs of various projects and clients

•Covering all client contact from the first call to the final meeting

•Allowing the organization to learn how to improve products and services

•Using consistent corporate-wide tools for measuring client satisfaction, such as account management satisfaction surveys

•Including standard ways to respond to customer complaints or concerns, such as protocol, an escalation process and clear documentation of steps

•Allowing staff to evaluate performance against the client’s desired outcomes and expectations

•Integrating with processes across the corporation

Clients know what they want when it comes to process and that is excellence. Meeting those expectations means that organizations must find a common ground between total customization for each and every client and the rigid consistency of products and services. For example, are you building each and every computer to your customers’ particular specifications and requirements; or are you creating a line of finely-tuned training shoes that are ready off-the-shelf to meet the needs of fitness enthusiasts with varying degrees of skill and form?

Alternately, clients may not know about their intended outcomes and opportunities. Therefore, it is your role to provide support through trend analysis, use of competitive intelligence, asking good questions and being open to radical inquiry. For example, your customer is far from home and an emergency situation erupts. Is your answer, “Of course we’ll take care of it,” or “We’re not allowed to do that?”

Corporate staff needs to know what the important it is, how to do it, and whether or not they are meeting customer expectations. As a customer-oriented organization your targets should be obvious.

•Adding customer value

•Focusing on results

•Seeing the bigger picture (the big it)

•Educating the customer and expanding their view

•Developing consulting relationships with clients

•Building and maintaining credibility

•Opening the door to finding out about the client’s world

•Asking questions

•Using an inquiry stance

Think also about your own desired outcomes for your customer interactions. Anyone can be a vendor; your aspiration, however, is to partner with your clients for mutual benefit and satisfaction.

Ultimately, the goal is to raise the quality of service you are providing in order to enhance and manage the customer’s experience. Think about the last time you had a question or problem with a product or service. What were you hoping for? Well that is the resolution you want to be for your customers. Even if you do not make the sale, your customer can walk away without that pair of cross-trainers but with a positive experience they will remember, talk about, recommend to others and lead them to return another day.

Finally, remember your critical internal customers as well: the folks who work with you and beside you every day. This is, after all, your team we are talking about. Your efforts here are no less essential so be sure to include an abundance of respect, fairness and appreciation.

What actions or changes does your organization need to make in response to customer expectations and feedback for maintaining an overall excellent customer experience?