To create customer loyalty and use extreme customer service as a competitive force to dominate your market, you must follow a multi-step process that starts with creating a foundation of satisfactory customer service.

So let's start there.

Creating one satisfied customer it is straightforward and accessible. It comes down to four fundamentals that must exist in your customer service and overall customer experience:

The first essential is what I would tentatively call a perfect product.

Now, nothing in this world is perfect, so let's be clear in our definition: It is designed and manufactured to perform correctly (“perfectly”) under reasonably expected circumstances. Now, you may not think you're selling a product, but I expect you are, and you need to confirm that this “product” part of your offer meets the definition of the “perfect product.”

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Let's say you're a financial advisor: in addition to your planning and investment services, there's a product aspect: your online help options, your decor, ease of finding and using handicap parking (if clients visit you in person) , how your invoices are designed and whether your billing is regularly accurate.

Second, customer satisfaction depends on providing your service by caring people. (Or, at least, people who treat customers with care; whatever's in your heart isn't what matters here; fantastic actors are more than welcome.)

The third element is time. of The tricky thing is that the timeline is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder, in this case, is your customer. This means that in order to achieve a level of timeliness that will lead to a satisfied customer, you need to have your ear to the ground on how your customers view your planning performance and adjust as needed.

The fourth and last element is a service recovery approachan effective framework that prompts and guides you to effective action whenever something goes wrong in your customer's eyes. Once you implement this service recovery framework, you'll be ready and able to turn around almost any situation where your customer is disappointed, upset, or even angry. Even with your perfect product, things will go wrong and your answer is much of what matters in the end.

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If you don't already have a service recovery approach that works for you, consider my MAMA method:

• Myou have time to listen
• oraccept and/or apologize
• have one Mmeeting of minds with the client
• orct! And follow. You can have the full text of this framework as a gift at this connection.

So now we have created a satisfied customer. But a satisfied customer isn't the be-all and end-all of what you're hoping to create, so to speak, and use as a reliable and sustainable competitive advantage.

A satisfied customer will return their business to you as a repeat customer, all things being equal, but this “all things being equal” is not reliable: Every day, a satisfied customer may be attracted by a slightly lower price, a slightly better location, or indeed, nothing definable except that they think you are interchangeable with other brands out there. there.

So if you're looking to use customer service as a competitive advantage, you need to get as many customers as possible out of the satisfied zone and into the customer loyalty and engagement zone. A loyal customer is less price sensitive, sorry when they screw up the occasional order, and more willing to try add-ons and line extensions.

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To reliably build a loyal customer, rather than a satisfied customer, you generally need to add “that extra something.” That extra something can be a “wow” moment. Sometimes, the “wow” is an extraordinary gesture, like the wonderful stories you've heard about the Ritz-Carlton finding a child's toy and sending it on an elaborate, photographed journey before mailing it to him. These moments are powerful because we think in terms of stories, and they give your customer a story that will set you apart from the competitive crowd.

There is also what I call “wow every day”: it adds a little extra to every interaction (at least every interaction where it seems like the customer has time to be wowed).

Another essential is advance customer servicewhich is answering questions that have not yet been expressed and fulfilling needs and desires that have not even been asked for. Anticipatory customer service is essential to let customers know that you always have their interests (and desires) in mind.

A particular type of advance customer service is also one of the least splashy. it's recognition, a feeling for the customer that they are being seen, as a human being and as a special human being. This is always one unspoken wish: no one says, “Hey, when I come to the parts department at your car dealership, I want to be recognized. I want to be greeted and treated as an individual.”

But when you give that recognition, it's a very powerful and secret (or now, not so secret) force to bring them back again and again.