People are the most precious assets of any organisation. We help people realise their full potential through upgradation of skills and transfer of knowledge. We provide customised learning and consulting solutions post carrying out detailed contextualisation exercises for understanding the needs of our esteemed clients.

Ravinder Singh Chawla

Founder & CEO

We are in the era of buyers’ market. There is stiff competition and the buyers have immense choices. Customer Service, continues to be the key focus area for every company. What then, are the top 3 actions for achieving Customer Delight?

How can companies retain their customers and keep them in business, forever? How can they ahead of their competitors?

Before we talk about the 3 actions for achieving customer delight, let us understand the difference between customer delight and customer satisfaction.

The customer is satisfied if their expectations get met. However, if the experience of customers is beyond expectations, they get delighted. Customer Delight, therefore, is delivering more value, beyond the expectations of the customers.

In today’s high clutter markets, customer delight is the objective of service standards that each company aspires to achieve.

So, what are the 3 actions that could enable achievement of this aspiration?

These are:

1) Know as to who are your customers or stakeholders?

2) Understand the expectations of these customers or stakeholders

3) Deliver value beyond their expectations

Let us discuss about each of these actions in more detail.

1) Know as to who are your customers:

Customer includes everyone who has some expectations from the company. Broadly speaking, these could be categorised into two:  External and Internal.

a) External customers

These customers or stakeholders are external to the company. Let us identify some of those:

i) Existing and prospective buyers and consumers ii) Those who influence others to buy the solutions (in form of products or services) offered by the company. For example, Distributors or Business Associates or channel partners etc. iii) Vendors or Suppliers iv) Regulator v) Government

b) Internal Customers:

These customers or stakeholders are internal to the company and an inseparable part thereof. Such as:

i) Employees ii) Various functions or departments within the company iii) Board of Directors iv) Investors

2) Understanding the expectations of these customers:

After knowing about our customers or stakeholders, we now need to understand their expectations. No relationship can prosper unless it is a win-win one. The company needs to win along with its customers. No company can win and flourish at the cost of its customers.

So, what could be the expectations of existing or prospective buyers / consumers of the solutions offered by a company? We shall learn about the same both for external and internal customers or stakeholders of companies.

a) External Customers

The various types of external customers and their expectations are as follows:

i) Buyers or consumers:

They expect need-based (customised) solutions; value for money deals; superior pre-sales and post-sales service support; ethical dealing without any surprises; being always approachable, etc.

ii) Distributors or business associates or channel partners:

They expect clear communication on the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), commission schemes, Reward and Recognition (R&R) schemes, escalation matrix for support requirements; Quality solutions (in the form of products / services); timely settlement of commission and R&R schemes; transparency in dealings; Learning and Development support, etc.

iii) Vendors or suppliers:

They also expect clear communication on the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), terms and conditions, payment settlement process, escalation matrix for support requirements; timely settlement of payments as per the agreed terms; constant engagement and open communication channels, etc.

iv) Regulator:

It is quite possible that the industry that a company belongs to, may be regulated. The regulator is one of the most important customers of a company.

For a Bank (in India), for example, it is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); for an Insurance company, the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI), for a mutual fund company or a stock exchange, it is the SEBI; for a housing finance company, for example, it is the National Housing Bank (NHB), etc.

The regulator expects the company to comply with all the regulatory mandates, such as acts, guidelines, circulars etc. that it may have issued. Similarly, it would also expect timely submission of reports as mandated, etc.

v) Government:

Likewise, the Government (through its respective ministries and departments) may also expect compliance to the laid down norms as well as acts.

We discussed about some of the examples of a few types of external customers or stakeholders of companies. Let us now talk about the expectations of a few of internal customers or stakeholders.

Once a company clearly understands the expectations of its customers or stakeholders, it can strive to go for the next action, to achieve customer delight.

This third action is about the delivery of value proposition, beyond the expectations of customers or stakeholders.

However, before that, let us also see as to what could be the expectations of the internal customers of the company.

b) Internal Customers

The types of internal customers and the their expectations are as follows:

i) Employees:

The employees are the most important internal customers of a company.

They expect clear communication about the role / position that have been recruited for, compensation benefits, hierarchical structure and growth opportunities.

They also expect professional working environment with well-laid processes and systems and team work.

Besides this, they also expect Reward and Recognition (R&R) and Incentive Schemes; Learning and Development opportunities; Grooming, Mentoring and Coaching etc.

ii) Various functions and departments within the company:

The employees belonging to various functions and departments within the company expect clear communication on processes and systems, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), policy guidelines; escalation matrix for support requirements; regular interactive meets to sort out issues and bottlenecks; team-work, engagement and communication, etc.

Many contemporary organisations are highly compartmentalised. Various functions and departments may take the shape of silos within a company. The employees may identify themselves as belonging to the respective department first instead of the company.

This environment has an adverse impact on the employee productivity due procedural delays. Team work is the first casualty and may result in a blame game. Employees do not like working in such an environment.

iii) Board of Directors:

The Board of Directors (esp. the independent directors) expect sharing of facts and strategic information with them. They do not expect any surprises, similar to the ones that most of the directors on the board of Satyam Ltd. experienced, in 2009.

Likewise, the statutory auditors would also expect full co-operation and sharing of data by the CFO and other members of top management of a company.

In the recent past, there have been a few cases of the statutory auditors of a few public listed companies in India (such as Manpasand Beverages Ltd., Vakrangee Ltd., Bhushan Steel Ltd. etc.) resigning citing non-cooperation in sharing vital information by the top management of the company.

iv) Investors:

We are in an age where tens of thousands of start-ups get originated on a daily basis. These start-ups approach angel investors, venture capitalists, incubators, accelerators etc. for funding. Similarly, many companies come out with an initial public offering (IPO) and reach out to general public for investments.

So, what is the expectations of the investors. They expect complete information about the company, the business model, strengths, opportunities, risk factors, etc., as well as details as stipulated by the market regulator. In short, they expect complete transparency, in terms of details, so as to be able to make informed decisions.

So, once a company understands the expectations of its customers and other stakeholders, what should be the next action?

This brings us to the 3rd action that the company needs to take now, so as to achieve customer delight.

3) Deliver value beyond the expectations of customers

Value is the sum-total of the entire experience of the customer or stakeholder with the company, as perceived by him.

As shared, the customers or stakeholders have certain expectations from the company. The customers are willing to pay a certain price for the same. Similarly, the other stakeholders may be open to investing their time / money or offer their services to the company.

They would like to compare their overall experience vis-à-vis the expectations that they have had. If this experience is in line with the expectations, the customers would be satisfied. The customer or stakeholder shall not regret dealing with the company.

However, in this case, will the customer or stakeholder continue to remain engaged with the company? It may not be so as the customers have many options to choose from.  Afterall, we are in a buyers’ market!

For the customer to be absolutely delighted with the company, the company must ensure that the value delivered to the customer or stakeholder is beyond their expectations.

Example:

Let us imagine that a person is interested in buying an inkjet printer for his Home and evaluate the entire experience of this customer.

• When he goes to buy the printer, the sales people at the store understand his requirements and recommend a few options. They help the customer take informed decision. The customer is quite pleased with his decision. He feels that he has bought the printer rather than having been push-sold the same.
• Delivery of the printer is made earlier than the promised date.
• Installation and demonstration also take place sooner than as was expected by the customer. He is, therefore, thrilled.
• The performance of the printer, as experienced by the customer, is super-awesome. Not only is the print quality superior, the printer is highly ink-efficient too, in the perception of the customer.

In this example, the overall experience of the customer is beyond his expectations and he is delighted. He proudly shares his experience with his friends and recommends the same brand of printer to others.

Similarly, in case of other external customers, such as the business associates and vendors too, if their overall experience with the company is beyond their expectations, they shall be happy as well.

The same scenario would work in case of internal customers and stakeholders too. We all know of many organisations that continue to remain the preferred choice for many employees.

We must not forget, however, that the expectations of the customers or stakeholders would keep rising. Which means that the organisations must keep learning what their customers expect and keep evolving themselves.

Wherever possible, the companies may also attempt to set expectations of the customers. Airline companies, for example, publish the flight duration time to be longer than the normal, so that they could delight the customer by reaching earlier than the scheduled time of arrival as published in the flight schedules.

At SkillBuilders.in Learning and Consulting Solutions https://skillbuilders.in we support our esteemed clients (esp. in the SME and MSME segments) focus on customer delight by:

i) Conducting assessment of the existing processes and systems; recommending modifications therein, in line with the contemporary best practices and implementing the new processes and systems.

ii) Identifying the Learning and Development (L&D) needs of the companies; designing appropriate L&D programs and facilitating the same.

iii) Implementing & analysing the performance matrices for evaluating the customer experience scores for the company and recommending appropriate corrective actions, wherever required.

We take pride in delighting our esteemed clients.