Customer Service can be divided into two elements – the tangible (such as telephone answering times, delivery when promised) and the intangible (how the customer feels about doing business with you).
If you can’t deliver when you say you will, or your telephone is constantly engaged, you have a fundamental customer service failure which clearly needs fixing as a high priority.
Fortunately, these tangible elements are measurable (although it isn’t always particularly easy) so it is possible to keep track of how you’re doing.
It’s the intangible which are more difficult – both to define and to measure. That’s partly because they tend to be relative to your customer’ expectations. For example, if your industry has a reputation for rudeness and your staff can avoid being actually rude, you might still be the industry leader!
On the other hand, if you’ve told everyone what a great customer service you offer (even though all your competitors are acknowledged to be lousy) you can still generate ill-feeling if you ever fail to meet those expectations you’ve raised.
Having your customers consistently rate your service ‘excellent’ isn’t good enough if they’re rating your chief competitor ‘outstanding’.