Introduction

In order to develop a reputation for Service Excellence organisations need to become customer-centric, that is, they need to put their customers at the heart of everything they do whether it’s financial control, investment, marketing, recruitment, training, sales, decisions making, process design, organisation design, procurement, innovation, strategic planning, indeed, literally everything is aligned to serving their customers!

The popular thought: that an organisation can become World Class by product innovation is flawed. Yes, a new product may allow you to capture the imagination and the interest of consumers but if your service fails to live up to expectations then consumers will turn to an alternative supplier; a product can be replicated rather easily, great service less so.

And the big benefit of delivering a World Class service? Loyal customers! And the benefit of having loyal customers?

• Loyal customers will keep coming back;

• Loyal customers will buy more of your products;

• Loyal customers will become advocates of your organisation which will lead to more customers;

• Loyal customers are often prepared to pay a premium for your service;

• Loyal customers will be more tolerant of any problems you may encounter;

• Loyal customers stay with you and are therefore cheaper to manage than new customers because they know their way around your organisation.

The big issue for many organisations is they do not have the culture, the leadership, the systems, the processes or the people to become World Class so they need a new approach.

Aims

The aim of this course is to help delegates establish a framework within which their organisation can develop a service excellence strategy, the ‘DEDICATED’ approach will be outlined to offer delegates a structured but simple approach to delivering service excellence.

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Objectives

By the end of the programme delegates will be able to:

• Define Service Excellence and other key terms used in a customer-centric organisation;

• Explain what constitutes service excellence;

• Describe how to Demonstrate personal commitment to service excellence;

• Outline a strategy for implementing service excellence;

• Describe a range of approaches to be used to celebrate;

• Explain how to assess the service levels achieved;

• Outline a number of business transformation strategies to deliver service excellence;

• Describe how to embed a culture of service excellence in an organisation;

• Outline a strategy for defending a service excellence strategy.

Methods:

A number of learning interventions will be used throughout this course, including: presentations, exercises, case studies and role plays.

Duration: 5 days

Class size:

To ensure maximum benefit for each delegate it is recommended that the class size for this programme does not exceed 16.

Who it's for:

All executives, senior managers and others in all sectors of the economy who have a need to lead and embed a service excellence culture in their organisation

Course Content

Day 1

Define it…

• Agree important definitions within the scope of service excellence;

• Exploring the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty;

• The business case for building a loyal customer base;

• Using a domain map to help identify all stakeholders and their relationships.

Explain it…

• How to help employees understand the importance of service excellence;

• The role of your Corporate Communications function in developing a communications strategy to maintain focus on service;

• Exploring what might happen when your corporate communications fail to have the required impact;

• Identifying a range of alternative communications channels and exploring what might be most effective;

• The business case for establishing a corporate communications function.

Day 2

Demonstrate it…

• The role of leaders in demonstrating commitment to service excellence;

• Exploring how the role of leadership differs from management in sustaining and developing the message about service excellence;

• The importance of clear statements of corporate vision, mission, values and competitive strategy to support service excellence;

• How to create a culture of service excellence;

• It’s not what you say it’s the way that you say it…. exploring non-verbal communication.\

Implement it…

• The human side of the enterprise;

• Managing the development of service delivery employees:
  Developing employee competence;
  Generating employee commitment;
  Creating organisational culture.

• Exploring the complexity of employee performance:
  The function of employee appraisal systems;
  The purpose of pay.

• The importance of understanding human motivation and how it impacts on service excellence;

• How to design jobs that motivate employees to deliver superior service.

Day 3

Celebrate it…

• Exploring a range of recognition systems to acknowledge superior service;

• How to establish a process for capturing and sharing positive customer feedback;

• Identifying opportunities for winning recognition from peer groups such as industry awards;

• Identifying opportunities for winning international awards for service excellence such as ISO9001.

Assess it…

• The importance of capturing regular customer feedback;

• Exploring a range of tools for capturing customer feedback and tracking satisfaction;

• How to create an effective survey questionnaire;

• The role of the Mirror Survey in aligning employee perceptions with customer perceptions;

• The role of creating a Net Promoter Score;

• How to exploit social media as a customer engagement tool;

• Exploring how to report and monitor levels of customer satisfaction and related key performance indicators;

• The importance of managing complaints strategically.

Day 4

Transform it…

• Identifying how customers perceive their service experience;

• Exploring how the gap between customer expectations and customer perceptions of their experience;

• How to develop market intelligence;

• How to identify gaps in the service delivery system that potentially thwart service delivery objectives;

• How to use a range of tools to close gaps in the service delivery system.

Day 5

Embed it…

• How leadership style impacts on sustainability of service excellence;

• Exploring your personal message about service excellence – walking the talk;

• The importance of leaders becoming role models;

• Using the Balanced Scorecard to monitor results;

Defend it…

• The importance of team working in establishing peer group feedback to defend the service excellence;

• How to address individuals not demonstrating support for service excellence;

• The importance of giving feedback to employees not complying with the service excellence strategy;

• Exploring a range of feedback models;

• Using the DESC model as a framework for delivering feedback.