Strategy 1: Adopt the Everything Counts Customer Service Maxim

Everything Counts is a maxim that sends a powerful message. It means that you see every customer interaction as an opportunity to retain a valued customer, increase your value proposition, build loyalty, or strengthen a brand.

It means that everything in your business counts from the friendly hello to the appreciative thank you as well as every little paper clip and detail in between.

Strategy 2: Take Care of Your Staff … So They Will Take Care of Your Customers.

Without the right staff and proper training to deliver great service, other plans and programs won’t amount to a hill of beans.

That’s why effective customer-focused leaders focus on employees first. Take care of your staff, and they’ll take care of your customers.

Leadership must put staff first, and staff, in turn, will put the customer first.

Strategy 3: Keep Your Promises

If you make a promise to a customer, keep it. The absence of this discipline is a stain on your company’s reputation that is virtually impossible to remove.

Take your promises and customer commitments seriously, because your customers do. Nothing annoys customers and fuels their lack of loyalty more than being lied to.

Strategy 4: Deliver Quality and Excellence

A commitment to quality and excellence breeds client loyalty. These things don’t happen accidentally; they are the result of careful planning and exceptional execution.

Quality and excellence create confidence and enhance your customers peace of mind; they function as an insurance policy against mediocrity and an assurance of profitability.

Strategy 5: Focus on the Customer Experience

Making people feel good about themselves and your company makes a more conducive environment for them to spend their money. Customer centered companies provide more than just a quality product, they provide a rich experience, too.

Apple uses an acronym of the company’s name to lay out the Steps of Service for their customer-centered program:

• Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome
• Probe politely to understand all the customers needs
• Present a solution for the customer to take home today
• Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
• End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return.

Apple’s entire customer experience, their service, quality, product design, and their brand attributes connects on an emotional level, keeping their customers satisfied and feeling well served and loyal. That loyalty can and will result in the capture of substantial lifetime revenue.

The companies that put customers first win much more than loyalty; they win advocates. As passionate advocates, customers jump on the bandwagon and freely recommend your company to friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

They purchase your products and services as gifts, and they provide unsolicited praise or suggestions of improvement because they believe in you!

What to Do Now? Share your two cents worth on customer service and having a customer-centered culture.

You take care of the ones who pick up the tab!

Back to Basics

Unfortunately, organizations that put customers at the center of the action are rare. The pain and suffering to which many companies subject their customers is disgraceful.

Far too often, customers are forced to deal with dispassionate employees, voice mail hell, and a begrudging attitude. They feel underwhelmed, over promised, under served, and unappreciated, which leads to a complete absence of loyalty. Way to go!

Let’s face it – NO company can exist without happy customers. These are the people who pay the mortgage, put food on the table, and help put your kids through college.

Loyal customers keep coming back and spending more; they become powerful advocates for your cause. Enthusiastic customers make your work fun, enjoyable and purposeful.

B2B should mean “Back to Basics”–a return to business fundamentals where it’s all about the customer.

You can ONLY create lasting value for your business by creating true value for customers, and you can only achieve this by understanding what it is that customers themselves actually value.

Think like a customer–walk a mile in their shoes–and you’ll see that friendliness, quality, convenience, timeliness, respect, and gratitude all count.

What to Do Now? Comment and Share your feedback with friends and colleagues.

It seems so obvious, doesn’t it?

So why doesn’t everyone do this?

I’ll get to that in just a moment.

The fact is, it’s always cheaper and smarter to do everything right the first time and here are a few reasons why:

TIME: Failure is more expensive in terms of time when you have to do the job over again.

MONEY: Money spent to fail, must be spent again to succeed.

REPUTATION: Your credibility decreases with each failure, making it more difficult to gain support or forgiveness.

PRECEDENT: Success sets a positive example and precedent for future accomplishment.

PRIDE: Taking pride in one’s work is impossible when you have to explain poor performance.

Now, let’s get back to the key question: Why don’t more people and organizations get the message that not only is quality cheaper to make, it is also way cheaper to sell?

It’s embarrassingly simple — it costs more right now, it takes planning right now, it requires commitment right now, and it requires change right now.

Doing things right the first time will ALWAYS be difficult, and it will always require a sustained commitment to quality and excellence.

Quality first, quality always and a commitment to things right the first time is the mark of greatness and the best part is that it’s FREE!

What To Do Now? Share your two cents worth on the importance of quality!

The secret to quality and perfection.

A commitment to quality is a commitment to perfection as quality comes from putting your heart and soul into your work.

It means that you are lovingly doing all of the things that bring out your absolute best.

The word love is appropriate, because it is precisely right in both the meaning and the feeling that it carries.

Do all things lovingly; that is the secret to quality and perfection, and expecting nothing but perfection is the first step toward achieving it.

A loving devotion to quality allows no detail to be overlooked. It wants everything to be just so, nothing that might affect that which makes the performance spectacular can be neglected or regarded as trivial.

A compulsion to be tidy, orderly and well organized is a natural impulse and by-product in a workplace where quality is taken to heart.

While the ideal of perfection is always humbling, it should never be thought of  as defeating. There is no rest when it comes to quality; therefore, quality must be an obsession.

The passionate pursuit of perfection is what gives work meaning and gratifies the human soul. When the work we do is the work we love, the results are a shining testament of quality.

Quality first, quality always is the mark of greatness; therefore choose to be great today!

WHAT TO DO NOW? Share your two cents worth on what quality means to you?

Pay Attention to Details

If you long to accomplish great and noble tasks, you first must learn to approach every task as though it were great and noble. Even the grandest project depends on the success of the smallest components.

The popular philosophy that instructs us not to sweat the small stuff is flawed, because it breeds poor customer service, under-performance, wasted opportunity, mistakes, inconsistencies, rework, and oversights.

From typos to tardiness, many people and organizations act as if details just don’t matter much. The result of this mindset is that they treat customers poorly, deliver sloppy results, and show up both unprepared and late.

Many people downplay small details, dismissing them as minutia, the small stuff that we’re encouraged to ignore. But in fact, our entire environment is simply an accumulation of tiny details. Although we measure our lives in years, we live them in days, hours, minutes and seconds.

Every action, every detail of our lives–has bottom-line repercussions; and it’s dangerous and derogatory to think of any of those details as trivial, unimportant or inconsequential.

Successful people, in many walks of life, understand the importance of detail:

• Crime scene investigators know that it’s often the smallest, most obscure detail that results in the arrest and prosecution of criminals.
• Athletes and coaches are all too aware that one minor misjudgment can swing momentum to their competitor and result in a loss rather than a win.
• Doctors and nurses understand that the slightest mistake or loss of focus can result in a tragic situation that carries massive liability.
• Business people carefully oversee the details of their products and services, knowing that one simple slip-up can cause a series of events that negatively impacts the bottom line, brand integrity, and public perception.
• Engineers and architects know that the stability of the most gigantic structure depends on the integrity of its smallest element; a failed bolt or a misplaced pin can have huge consequences.
• Fireman, first aid responders, and other emergency personnel are trained to focus on details even as a tragedy unfolds; as every second can make the difference between life and death in an emergency situation.
• Amusement parks know that the safety and physical well-being of their guests?and the financial viability of the company?require consistent and meticulous attention to the minute mechanical details of rides and attractions.
• Computer programmers spend their careers tightly focused on detail, as one incorrect digit in a code of millions can create an operational nightmare for the end user.
• Automotive detailers make their living by restoring a car to showroom condition. This requires the removal of every last piece of lint, dirt, and grime; and the major tool of their trade is a simple Q-tip.

Ultimately, the key to quality in every aspect of our lives is doing little things correctly — all the time, every time, — so that each action produces a quality result.

When every detail is lovingly attended to, and each step in the process is given complete and careful attention, the end result inevitably will be of the highest quality.

Consistent attention to the small details produces excellence, that’s why we must all sweat the small stuff!

WHAT TO DO NOW? Share your two cents worth on the importance of paying attention to detail.

Quality is the calling card of greatness.

This post began with a simple question: What is quality?

Quality is about love; it’s a passionate obsession with perfection. It is the result of good intentions, uncompromising standards, sincere effort, intelligent design, attention to detail and skillful execution.

Quality is the calling card of greatness; and it represents the wisest choice among many alternatives.

True quality is only achieved through continuous improvement in performance that ensures the highest standards of your products, services, processes and technology.

If you have any intention of being competitive, then quality — in the broadest sense of the term — must become an obsession. Dynamic, sustainable results will only be achieved through an obsession with quality.

High achievers are essentially scientists whose laboratories happen to be any of a variety of places — the kitchen, athletic field, courtroom, classroom, and boardroom.

They test assumptions, experiment with new concepts and ideas, and search through the minutia looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack that can take lead to a breakthrough and competitive edge.

In the pursuit of quality, high achievers bring a methodical, pragmatic and demanding approach to work. And, because these individuals only want to produce the best results, their personal standards are uncompromising.

In their pursuit of perfection, they pay rigorous attention to detail, expect greatness, and consistently deliver superior results. In their efforts to perform at the top of the game, they show no mercy to themselves or others. They understand that quality is a competitive weapon, and they use it with great authority.

The goal is simple: make your own and your organization’s name synonymous with quality. Strive to render ever more perfection to the form and function of your work.

Ensure that each and every aspect of your work receives a finishing touch. The final attention to detail must be given to the polish. Every single facet of quality must be polished and buffed in such a way that the end result exceeds all customer expectations.

I’ve saved the best part for last; a commitment to quality means never having to say you’re sorry!

WHAT TO DO NOW? Share your two cents worth on what quality means to you.