Eliminate the Gap - Customer Service Lesson

I’ve written about the customer service gap before. The first version referred to the gap
between you and your competitors. You want the gap to be wide. It means
you are putting yourself further ahead of your competition and picking
up market share.



The second version of the gap focused on narrowing the distance
between you and your customers. The closer you are to your customers,
and the more you are meeting their needs, the narrower the gap is
between you and your customer. This also puts your competition further
away from your customers.

Now comes the third version of the gap, which is the difference
between how good a company thinks their service is versus what their
customers actually believe they receive.



A number of years ago, I read an interesting report from Bain and
Company that found 80% of companies say they deliver superior customer
service, yet only 8% of customers agree. That is a surprising, almost
staggering, statistic. Is there that big of a disconnect? Is the gap
really this big?

There are other studies that have similar findings, although not
quite as severe as the numbers from Bain and Company. Even if that
number was cut in half, it would still be a problem. In a perfect world,
there wouldn’t be a gap. In a truly customer-focused organization, you
might even see the gap reversed. In other words, the customer perceives
the service they receive from a company is even better than that
company’s leadership believes it to be. Maybe that’s because that
company won’t settle for anything other than the best, and is always
striving to deliver a superior level of service, never settling for
mediocrity, never resting on their laurels.



So, what can you do to avoid or eliminate this gap? Here are just a few ideas:

1. Survey your customers.
   This one is obvious. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. You can
   use several different survey questions and techniques but just consider
   this one suggestion. Keep the surveys short. You stand a greater chance
   of the survey being returned if they are short and take less than a
   minute or two to fill out.
2. Ask the customer directly, at the time they are finishing their
   interaction with you. This is a form of an “exit interview.” Again, keep
   it short and you’ll get more customers willing to respond.
3. Have leadership mystery shop
   your company. Don’t hire mystery shoppers, but have the executives
   actually pick up the phone and call their own companies. Find out how
   easy it is to get to the right person, how long they are required to
   hold while waiting for customer service, and more. In other words, have
   them play a simple version of “Undercover Boss.”

So, don’t fall victim to the customer service gap. What you hope your
customers will perceive as good customer service, and how they perceive
it, are two different things. Narrow the gap so that what you want your
customers to experience is in fact what they experience.

Shep
Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning
keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For
information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXVIII, Shep Hyken)