ISS 2020 Vision Future of Service Management | Seite 7

1. Foreword
Great service is personal and it is all about creating memorable, insightful and impactful
connections with the people you serve. Making a customer feel appreciated and valued,
leads to a great service experience and makes it more likely they will want to continue the
relationship. I always live by the sentiment: Treat people like you want them to treat you.
I believe great service is rooted in human nature. In addition, a great service organisation
can provide processes, training and management practices that can leverage the customer
experience. Service comes from the willingness to be helpful to those around you. The
genuine desire to serve, to be proactive and selfless, in fulfilling the needs of others
makes for great service experiences.
Being a front-line employee entails much more than just providing a defined service. Your
appearance and attitude have a huge impact on people. You need to be approachable,
and careful in your body language and gestures. Being proactive, sociable and receptive
towards the end users is what will make them feel appreciated and this is as much about
engagement as recognising when to leave people in peace.
We are all human beings, we are all talented, and we are all gifted, and therefore, it is all
about how we bring these characteristics to life in creating great service moments. People
need services and they need the human connection that comes with them.
In the journey towards service excellence, organisations need to focus on bringing the
power of the human touch to life. The customer experience is key in all aspects. People
need to look at one service employee e.g. a front-liner like me, and then see a reflection of
the whole organisation that this person is representing. In my opinion, when it comes to
service, the employees – especially the front-liners – hold the key to creating great service
experiences and thereby also creating strong personal and even emotional connections
between the company they are representing and the person receiving the service.
Delivering great service experiences is second nature to me. In my daily job, I always try
to brighten people’s days and exceed the expectations of our customers. I try to do this
with great enthusiasm, a listening ear, a relaxed way of approaching people and my
personal trademark; a lot of humour. My personal motto is: “A day without laughter is
a day wasted”.
I hope this report provides some inspiration and tools for applying Service Management
in your organisation. Enjoy the read.
Kim van de Laarschot
Service Professional, ISS Netherlands
Global Apple Award Winner 2017
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