Service excellence training

In my previous blogs, I explained how important service excellence is. But how do profit-making companies obtain such a great service?

“Singapore Airlines: What it takes to sustain service excellence – A senior management perspective” is a paper written by Jochen Wirtz and Robert Johnston, two professors in marketing, in which they explain how SIA uses training to improve their service.

First, there is a service excellence initiative called Transforming Customer Service (TCS), which uses a 40-30-30 holistic approach. This means that they pay 40% attention to the people, 30% to processes and procedures and 30% to new products and service ideas. So you can tell that SIA puts a lot of energy in improving the service excellence.

Furthermore, SIA pays also a lot of attention to communication. After each business meeting, the complete staff is informed about all the developments. Besides that, the crew is also motivated by the several non-financial rewards.

Sim Kay Wee, the former Senior Vice President of SIA, said: “Profit is the applause you receive from serving your customers well”. So Singapore Airlines is such a profit-making company because they focus on service.

Tim Van De Walle
(source)

Service excellence: a short cost-benefit analysis

We have already seen several examples of enterprises who invest a lot of time and money in their service excellence. But is it worth it? Is it possible for an enterprise to exaggerate their efforts in order to have a perfect service excellence?

First, let’s make clear that perfection in service excellence is, like in all domains, impossible. There is always something that could be better. This is due to the diversity of the customers. Something which is good for one client can be found disturbing for another one.

Furthermore, every effort should bring more benefits along than costs, otherwise, the effort is not lucrative. Companies who need a good service excellence should know the needs of their customers. An ideal way to find this out is conducting a survey along the customers. By doing this, people who run the company can decide which efforts are economically spoken justified.

So, an enterprise should pay a lot of money and attention to a great service excellence, but it has to be lucrative.

Tim Van De Walle

The way to service excellence

We’ve already seen that Singapore Airlines delivers a excellent service. A proof of that is that they won over a hundred awards, in all kinds of categories. You may ask yourself: how do they obtain such an excellent service?

First, there is the selection of the personnel. This is a very severe procedure. Singapore Airlines (SIA) only hires people who enjoy serving others. After this selection, the applicants who are found appropriate for the job, get a lot of training, in order to become some of the best flight attendants in the world. SIA puts a lot of time, money and energy is this process, but in my opinion, it’s money well spent.

Moreover, they pamper the passengers. Flying with Singapore Airlines is not only transportation, but also delight. This includes: excellent food, warm towels, cocktails, free movies, music, internet connection, custom-built seats, cashmere blankets and many more…

Finally, SIA pays attention to the needs of the customers. It conducts a survey from time to time, which it uses to improve their service.

SIA really is an example of a great service excellence.

Tim Van De Walle
(source)

In challenging times, customer service quality matters most!

As the wind of economic cycles blows hard, some organizations try to save money by cutting on customer service quality. I’m convinced that this is exactly the wrong thing to do during a crisis.

In difficult economic times, customers expect that companies show courage and leadership in order to gain their trust. Therefore good planning and a personalized customer service are required.  Moreover, I think there are a few reasons why it is so important to offer excellent customer service during a crisis. Firstly, customers want to be sure they get maximum value for the money they spend. Secondly,  I think customers spend less time walking around and more time carefully choosing every purchase. By offering great service customers will be positive about this company, which boosts the company’s image.

As we know, customers are the core of every business, and as such, should be the top priority. That is why it is essential for companies to strive for continuous customer service improvement, especially in challenging times. It is even so important that it could be the difference between companies that survive and those that fail.

http://www.crm2day.com/content/t6_librarynews_1.php?id=50173

Florian Tack

Automotive service excellence (ASE)

If service excellence is an important factor for you when you go out shopping, or if something must be repaired, there are certain things you can do to check the service excellence of the enterprise your planning to go to. In the automobile industry, the best to do is to look for an ASE certificate. The national institute for automotive service excellence is a certification group that gives certificates to professional enterprises in the automotive and service industry. It was founded in response to customers that wanted to distinguish incompetent from competent enterprises. The organization wants to improve the quality from the vehicles with their certificates. The only way to receive a certificate from ASE is to pass for several exams, added with two years of hand on work experience. This certificate serves as proof of a competent and effective enterprise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_Service_Excellence

Nicolas Soenen

BNP Paribas Fortis creates voice recognition for automated teller machines.

The new automated teller machines of BNP Paribas are equipped with speak technology and voice recognition to make it easier for blind people to use these machines. The new devices can be recognized by the braille sticker that will be on the front of the device. For security reasons the screen will be made completely black when the voice technology is used. To use this new technology, you have to plug in your headphone, put in your credit or debit card and simply follow the instructions from the computer. The first of these new automated teller machines will be installed in December, and in 2011 there should be already over 600 of these machines equipped with the new technology. BNP is the first bank that is going the use the voice recognition technology and proves with these investments that it provides a greater service to their customers.

http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/997/Consument/article/detail/1170420/2010/10/15/BNP-Paribas-Fortis-rust-geldautomaten-uit-met-stembegeleiding.dhtml

Nicolas Soenen

BNP fortis warns for a fake e-mails

BNP Paribas Fortis warns for a fake e-mail that circulates through the internet. A hyperlink in a message that seems to be from the bank leads to a fake version of the website from BNP Paribas. This is a technique that is called phishing. The website even recommends to not give any personal information of any kind away. But BNP warns that they never ask for personal information through e-mail or on the telephone, and because of this, e-mails of that kind always will be fake. BNP also gives information to their clients how they can recognize a fake website from the real one. The authenticity of their website can be checked the hang lock in the right bottom of the page, or controlling if the address ends with fortisbanking.be or bnpparibasfortis.be. People who have been the victim of one of these fraud emails can always call a support number from BNP Paribas. This service that BNP Paribas provides, serves as proof that they are committed towards their customers.

http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/997/Consument/article/detail/1184554/2010/11/18/BNP-Paribas-Fortis-waarschuwt-voor-valse-mails.dhtml

Nicolas Soenen