When service means survival!

The third annual Business Week Customer Service Champs have been released!  If we did a local polling… how would you rank?

The age old adage of “It’s now what you say, but how you say it” could be morphed to be “It’s not what you DO, it’s HOW you do it” and be applicable to customer service!

With the customer more in control than ever in this economic environment, the companies offering outstanding customer service will prevail!  Sure, price is important right now, but customer service drives decisions too.

Below are a few of the top 25 Champs in the US and some ways they are cutting costs without slashing service quality!  These companies are using innovation.... empowering their employees… quickly solving poor hiring decisions… running lean organizations… and giving customers more choices—it seems to be working.

#1 Amazon.com
With CEO Jeff Bezos’ constant focus on innovative services: “Customers get more choice, that is what keeps them coming back.”

#4 Lexus
Last year this division of Toyota awarded as much as $50,000 to dealerships with the best new service ideas.

#5 The Ritz-Carlton
COO Simon F Cooper is cutting costs by closing some fine-dining restaurants and running laundry at night, when energy costs are lower.

#7 Zappos.com
There is no monitoring of call times and no scripts!  Call center employees has so much decision making power that they must “fit” the Zappos Culture. If they don’t mesh after their initial two-week training period, they are offered $2000 to leave the company.

#10 Ace Hardware
Last year, Ace Hardware rolled out new technology that analyzes past shopping patterns to tell store managers what time of day is quietest for tasks like restocking or cleaning.

#13 Nordstrom
Their famous return policy is so flexible that you can return snow boots in Phoenix that you purchased in New Jersey!  2009 will bring new technology to save online shoppers some

shipping costs.

#18 Trader Joe’s
This specialty grocery store runs a lean operation.  99% of their employees work in the stores.  The CEO doesn’t even have an assistant!  This mentality has helped avoid layoffs over their 40 year history.

The full Business Week article entitled “When service means survival” article posts the top 25 and can be found online.

Source: http://www.sbdcexcellence.org/index.php/weblog/comments/when_service_means_survival/

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