increase internal resources at the same
rate. Consistency is King and the same
product and service expectation that the
brand offered at the beginning, is what
customers will expect on a consistent
basis.
Organizations love to indicate that Cash
is King and that with no cash there is
no organization, but the cash comes
from the customers, and customers want
consistency, and therefore consistency
trumps cash any day. Give great
consistency and the cash will come…
Businesses will need to protect themselves
from slipping as they grow, given that any
slip at such a time that involves customers,
would be damaging to the business.
Avoiding a decline in customer service as
growth comes knocking is essential, and
organizations need to anticipate growing
customer service needs in the same way
that anticipated financial growth is
monitored.
To do this, organizations need to move
beyond the founder and their limited
capacity to know everybody, serve
everybody, follow up with everybody
and maintain relationship building
requirements with everybody. Systems,
processes and procedures must be created
and laid down for implementation.
Setting these up at the growth stage is a tad
too late - as these should have come with
the initial business planning that includes
planning for growth - but no matter what
stage a business is in, it is never too late to
Organizations love to
indicate that Cash is
King and that with
no cash there is no
organization, but the
cash comes from the
customers, and cus-
tomers want consis-
tency, and therefore
consistency trumps
cash any day. Give
great
consistency
and the cash will
come…
58 MAL33/19 ISSUE
Customer experience excellence is a cul-
ture issue. Culture is a people issue. Peo-
ple performance is a leadership issue and
ultimately culture is driven from the top.
To deliberately grow and maintain ser-
vice excellence as the company grows re-
quires process and people planning. The
processes development must be customer
centric and need continuous review based
on the changing needs of the growing or-
ganization and the changing customer
numbers.
plan for customer experience excellence.
Customer experience excellence is a
culture issue. Culture is a people issue.
People performance is a leadership issue
and ultimately culture is driven from the
top. To deliberately grow and maintain
service excellence as the company grows
requires process and people planning. The
processes development must be customer
centric and need continuous review based
on the changing needs of the growing
organization and the changing customer
numbers.
There needs to be a specific responsibility
placed to have customer journey mapping
done, to walk through customer experience
as it was in the beginning, the changes
needed with the growth process, and how
to sustain the desired service excellence.
Very personalized services are usually
meted in the early stages, and business
that are starting up are composed
of the founder’s friends, colleagues,
acquaintances, relatives and other persons
within their networks who pitch in to
support the business as customers. This at
the time would be quite easy to maintain
as the goodwill and the willingness to
patronize the business to see one of their
own succeed comes naturally.
The task ahead as the customer base grows
and includes ‘real’ customers who have no
attachment to the founders, is to maintain
the same level of excellent service for all.
These being a new crop of customers, over
and above thinking through what would
constitute great service at each customer
touch point, and what service standards
need to be maintained, it would add
absolute value to actually listen to them
and build in their ideas for improvement.
Not only will the customers feel a sense
of importance by having their ideas
sought, but also identify themselves as
partners in the business. Partners have
altered expectations from customers,
and this would tide the business over as
it transitions and takes into account the
development of more robust customer
service systems.
The people aspect of the business is
what makes or breaks business growth.
Great business plans have fallen and
been sacrificed at the altar of terrible
customer service, and terrible service
is given by teams that care not for the
organization’s vision mission and values.
To progress beyond the founder and to
have the staff invest in delivering growth
that is sustainable, they need to have
vested interests in the possibility of a
bright future for both themselves and the
organization.
The mindset shift needs to be a continuous
process such that it transcends from the
initial founder-driven need for excellence,
to an organization wide way of life that
grows as the company grows. When new
staff join and find that excellence is at the
core of all operations, they will go with
the flow and continue with it.
This however cannot just happen on its
own, and requires continued training
from both internal and external sources,