Are you continuously working on your customer service processes?
This is a very important question.
The key word in this question is “continuously”. Please note that I have chosen to use the word “continuously” and not “continually”.
What is the difference between “continually” and “continuously”?
“Continually” and “continuously” are related words, but they have different meanings.
“Continually” is an adverb meaning “frequently” or “regularly”.
“Continuously” is an adverb meaning “constantly” or “without interruption.”
An email came across my desk this morning:
It was an email from Dan Kennedy, that quoted somebody who had attended a Dan Kennedy live event many years ago where Dan taught two things that had always stuck with this person. These two things were:
- “Whatever you’re doing now you’re not likely to be doing it in five years”.
- “The only things that happen automatically are bad things…we have to manufacture the good.”
These are profound thoughts.
And they relate very specifically to life in business, and to life in customer service.
Firstly, over the next five years, your business will evolve into something that is different from the way that it operates today.
Sure, in five years’ time, your dental practice will still be providing dental services to patients, but the type of dental services, and the way that those dental services are being provided, will be different to the type of services and the delivery of those services today.
Secondly, and most importantly, for good things to happen we need to work on making those good things happen.
For a garden to grow, we need to plant the right plants, and to fertilise those plants and to water those plants. We need to continuously be nurturing our garden.
The only thing that happens automatically in a garden is weeds, and weeds occur spontaneously, and by the truck load.
Weeds need to be removed manually. They do not remove themselves. And when left unattended, weeds proliferate.
It’s the same with customer service…
The principles of World Class Customer Service may not change in the next five, ten, or twenty years, but the processes of providing that FIVE STAR EXPERIENCE will certainly evolve.
Similarly, the WORLD CLASS standards that your business and your employees need to be aspiring to need CONTINUOUS application and attention and practice, to ensure that those processes are always EXCELLENT, and are always striving WITHOUT INTERUPTION for improvement.
Those organisations that continuously seek to improve will always stand out as exceptional in their fields.
That’s why the provision of Customer Service will never be a given.
Providing Customer Service of an excellent standard is a choice.
Continuously providing a World Class Experience for your customers, clients, and patients is indeed a mission.
And that mission has its rewards. Rewards for the customers. And rewards for the businesses that create and maintain the World Class processes.
*************
Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP is a certified CX Experience coach. David works with his wife Jayne Bandy to help SME businesses improve their Customer Service Systems to create memorable World Class experiences for their valued clients and customers. Click here to find out how David and Jayne can help your business