“The customer is always right” is often a quoted by organizations as a way to instill a mindset of service at all costs. But what if this cost is too high for an organization to maintain profitability? At that point is the customer still right?"
Customers historically were right because they were the ones paying for a product or service. But a change is taking place for many service and manufacturing organizations. The concern isn’t necessarily the threat of customers not buying more products, but instead what happens if customers find a new provider as a result of poor service. In Aberdeen’s recent research on Mobile Field Service (June 2013) the top two pressures facing organizations was #1 – customer demand for improved (faster, more efficient) service and #2 – competitive pressures from the market. These two challenges combined made it a priority for organizations to take a long look at the service operation and try to find ways to not only improve to satisfy the customer but also to remain in business. This need to provide more than lip service to the mantra that the customer is always right has led top performing organizations to re-train their focus on delivering exceptional service to customers every time. A few trends highlight this level of service being provided in a new customer-centric world –
The service executive must become an expert at juggling both operational and customer related issues around service resolution. Rising costs of support can become a problem, however cutting costs to the determinant of the customer experience will lead to worse consequences – no customers. It is imperative that service improve efficiencies for the sake of the customer and not solely to generate more profits. Remember the customer is always right!
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written by:
Aly Pinder, Senior Research Associate at Aberdeen Group
As a senior associate in the customer experience and service management practice, Aly Pinder Jr. researches and explores how service and manufacturing executives utilize technology and implement best practices to improve post-sales service and support processes. Through practitioner benchmarking and analysis of Aberdeen’s research database, he examines how Best-in-Class service organizations are reengineering their service chains for improved performance and increased profitability.
Aly’s coverage areas within the service space primarily cover the following topics on which he has written or co-authored over 40 research reports and bench marked more than 4,000 service executives in his four plus years with Aberdeen:
Follow Aly at: @Aberdeen_cesm, @Pinderjr