Customer Service Gaps—Part 2 (Adapted from “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its implications for Future Research,” A. Parasuraman et al, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49, 41-50)

In Weekly Insight Volume 3, Issue 7 we discussed how to avoid disappointing customers with your company’s service.  Customers are disappointed with your company when their perception of your company’s service falls below what they had expected.  This is listed as the “Customer Gap” (see chart).  Note that this Customer Gap depends on the size and direction of the 4 Gaps listed on the Company side of the chart.  In Volume 7 we presented the Customer Gap and the Company’s Gap #1 and #2.  In this Insight, we’ll cover Company Gaps #3 and #4.

Gap #3 is one we’re all familiar with—not delivering to service standards.  Even when guidelines exist for performing services well and treating customers correctly, high quality performance is not a certainty.  So what’s the secret to closing Gap #3?

To close Gap #3, customer service standards must be backed by appropriate resources (people, systems, technology, for example) and also must be enforced to be effective.  Employees must be measured and compensated on the basis of performance along these standards.  Take a moment to score your company on Gap #3 where 1=I have nothing in place to ensure that the standards I have set for customer service actually take place to 10 which means you can almost guarantee fantastic customer service each and every time because you have invested the right resources into making that happen.

Gap #4 always tears me up—when our promises to the customer do not match our performance.  Broken promises can occur for many reasons such as:

·        Overpromising in advertising or personal selling

·        Inadequate coordination between operations and marketing.  It’s so easy for marketing to lay out a certain customer expectation for service and so difficult for operations to consistently deliver on that promise.

·        Lack of consistent policies and procedures across service outlets (e.g., franchises).

·        A failure to educate customers on how to use services effectively

·        A failure to manage customer expectations

Now score your company on Gap #4 where 1=We always underpromise and overdeliver to 10 where your company tends to consistently not meet the promises you make to customers.

Now, add up the scores you gave yourself for Gaps 1-4 and divide that number by 4.  That should give you some indication of how wide your Customer Gap is; place that number in the Score box just below the Customer Gap on the handout.  I can guarantee you one thing—that number is not zero.  A gap exists.  The question is,  “How will you close this gap?” The only way I know is to work on closing Gaps 1-4.

Closing Gap #1—Determining what customers expect

• Establish ongoing listening systems to capture, organize and share service quality information.

·        Mystery shopper

·        Surveys

·        Focus groups

·        Lost or declining customer surveys

• Be sure to solicit front-line employee input systematically
• Encourage manager/customer interactions
• Try to understand the needs of individual customers

Closing Gap #2—Developing customer-driven standards

• Document the customer’s experience with your company (flow chart it)
• Design standards of performance for each significant interaction with the customer
• Develop feedback systems to measure performance to the standards

Closing Gap #3—Improving service performance

• Truly believe that employee satisfaction impacts customer satisfaction
• Do H.R. right—hire right, train right, measure right, reward right.
• Match service demand and supply (be creative)

Closing Gap #4—Managing service promises

• Align all the company’s individual external and internal messages—integrate the marketing communications!
• Make sure the messages sent to customers by employees are consistent with the messages the company sends to them via advertising, public relations, the Internet and other channels.

If you believe that one or more of these gaps needs to be closed within your business, please contact me so we can discuss how Daystar can assist you in that process.  Or perhaps you’d just like to raise the level of awareness among your employees that these gaps do exist.  I’d be happy to deliver a 1-2 hour workshop on this subject at your location. 

Keith

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