What are the secrets to top-notch customer service?

Crain's Chicago Business asked this question, and came up with this answer:

MASTERS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE; A 'servant's heart,' a clear vision: 5 standouts reveal the keys to transcendence

Source: Crain's Chicago Business. 35.40 (Oct. 1, 2012): p0017.

Document Type: Article

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Crain Communications, Inc.

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Byline: Lisa Bertagnoli

Hire good people, treat them like family, let them work their magic with customers. Then watch the accolades--and the dollars--roll in.

If customer service is that easy, then why isn't every business in Chicago like Vive la Femme in Bucktown, which has 103 glowing Yelp reviews? Or like the Waldorf Astoria Chicago, rated the 22nd best hotel in the world? Or Fleet Feet Sports, where fitness nuts pay full retail for the newest in running shoes?

The first: focus
 
"It takes focus," says Ken Blanchard, a San Diego-based management expert and author of "Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to CustomerService." "It takes focus and energy and you can't have a lot of mistakes."

By "focus," Mr. Blanchard means deciding what experience a business wants to deliver to what kind of person. "You have to set parameters for what you're trying to do," he says, and that, by definition, means not being all things to all people. There's the first secret of customer service.

The second: zeal.

Retailers with reputations for customer service are "evangelical to what they're selling," says Paco Underhill, CEO and founding president of Envirosell Inc., a New York retail research and consulting firm, and author of "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping." Mr. Underhill points to Torrid, the plus-size retail chain, as an example. "They hire customers and turn them into associates," he says. "If you're plus size, wouldn't you be more willing to accept advice from a plus-size woman?"

Third: the human touch.

Customer service "is a way to describe the degree to which a business did the things it's supposed to do--the technical delivery of the product," says Danny Meyer, CEO of New York's Union Square Hospitality Group and author of "Setting the Table: The TransformingPower of Hospitality in Business," a book about restaurant service and hospitality.

Hospitality comprises "acts of thoughtfulness that go over and beyond what was expected," Mr. Meyer says. Hospitality--not mere service--is golden in this day of increasingly impersonal, technological interaction between people. "If you develop a dialogue with me and take an interest in me, I'll want to give you the business," he says. "It's human nature."

Crain's talked to five business owners and managers whose establishments excel at this aspect of the game. All five are evangelists for what they do; to no small extent they embody their customers. All say they that focus on the customer experience first and that revenue is almost an afterthought. All make service a priority, day after day after day.  All were more than willing to share these secrets, and more. 

On the next five blog posts, you can read what they had to say.

Copyright 2012 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lisa Bertagnoli

Source Citation   (MLA 7^th Edition)

"MASTERS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE; A 'servant's heart,' a clear vision: 5 standouts reveal the keys to transcendence." Crain's Chicago Business 1 Oct. 2012: 0017. General OneFile. Web. 30 July 2013.

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