BUSINESS ADVOCATE COLUMN FEBRUARY 2012

We are well underway with planning for this year’s Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards and once again the More FM Customer’s Choice will be one of the more highly contested categories. To say that a customer’s perception of the service they receive is critical to a business’s success is an understatement. Any review of online customer feedback websites will show many examples of various Whangarei businesses with such great a range of customer feedbacks that it hard to believe that the reviewers are talking about the same business. Generally a business exists to sell a product or service in return for financial gain and because of this a company’s entire profit is derived directly or indirectly from the customer. So it is critical for any business that the leaders and the staff have the right attitude and the right systems to ensure the delivery of a consistent high quality service that reflects the company’s brand. It is important to have systems and processes in place that allows a business to ensure that the right people are employed and that the customer is listened to and feedback is responded innovatively. However it is leadership that will ensure that this becomes deeply embedded in the company’s ethos. We assume the right people have been recruited and that may not necessarily be those with the best product knowledge and skills but with a passion to exceed the customer’s expectations. If this is actually the case then the critical element will be leadership both by management individuals within the workforce. The leader needs to be able to communicate what the company is all about and what experience the customer should be entitled to. Then they must monitor and modify behaviour to ensure that these expectations are met. This will require them to give feedback and through their own actions make it clear that the customer’s experience is important. More importantly it will require management to have critical examined their business and considered carefully what their product or service is. They will have identified who is their market and what they expect. Finally they will have identified and implemented the systems and processes required to ensure the right people are recruited, trained and led that will ensure that the customers’ expectations are met on every occasion. If we as businesspeople can strive for this and we as consumers can demand this occurs, then we can develop a reputation for service excellence.