“You will be successful if you don’t screw up.” That was hard to swallow, but proved to be critically important. I started watching how often we failed our customers. Then I started tracking the failures and had coworkers help fix the problems. My supervisors loved it and rewarded me for merely cutting down the screw ups.
Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality. (Peter Drucker)
Meeting expectations is often excellent customer service compared to your competitors. If you go out of your way to just meet expectations, you should write it down and report it. Note how much total revenue the customer is worth. If you teach others to meet expectations the same way, take credit for the customers they help. Creating a system to get rid of errors is a powerful accomplishment for your resume.
Giving customers better service than they expected should be tracked too. Did you figure out how to give better service without spending money? Did the service improvements save money because there was less rework or returned merchandise? Have you actually been able to charge for better service? Are you getting more customers because of the better service? Did you cut down the amount of time a customer waits for something?
Remember to take credit for everyone in your company who starts doing something you started. It may seem small to you but multiplied by every customer your company has, it could be gigantic.
Managers look for ways to improve customer service. If you track problems and then report on how you made things better, you will stand out. Even if you just do what others suggest, take credit for it. Track it. Put it in your resume and job journal. It may just get you an interview and a job.
Something To Do Today
In your job journal track screw ups and how you help improve service. Report it.
Have you been giving reports to your boss? Go back over last week and write a report of how well you did and turn it in. Now do that every week. Your boss will appreciate getting information he can use to show how well his team is doing.
————————–
Tomorrow: The Heisenberg uncertainty principle
Later: Post-it notes
How they determine your pay rate