Service-Ability: Create a Customer Centric Culture and Achieve Competitive Advantage

FOREWORD

As technology and customer knowledge and expectations have changed, the demands on business to go beyond merely meeting needs and create a transaction based on requirements have changed – and continue to change. Customers make choices using the internet, see what is available across the world, and gain feedback from other commentators and customers, sometimes live,real time.

These go beyond the product or immediate service and establish a new realm of the interface between customers and businesses – one that will be about exceeding expectations. This can very rarely be about solely product, physical or service – it sees and expands the less quantifiable aspects of the emotional bond formed from always ‘being there’ for the customer, and anticipating what will please.

These behaviours by your business, or more accurately the people in your business, are becoming the most significant element in creating a lasting customer relationship of value in world where the internet and immediate 24hr order capabilities tend to promote grazing and ‘promiscuity’ in customers.

A few exceptional businesses have already recognised this and built levels of loyalty, belief and reputation that others can only envy. The success of Apple in anticipating customer desires,and the relationships built by a number of Japanese brands with consumers are matched by the customer loyalties being developed by FreshDirect in New York. In contrast, regular car manufacturers and food supermarkets in Europe ...