Turning A Mantra Into a Customer Service Action Statement
Company Added
Company Removed
Apply to Request List

Turning A Mantra Into a Customer Service Action Statement

Turning A Mantra Into a Customer Service Action Statement

“We are a customer-first organization”

“Treat customers the way you want to be treated”

“Exceed customers’ expectations”

“Going above and beyond is our standard”

“We deliver genuine hospitality”

Leaders love to throw around platitudes when it comes to customer experience, and all of these are great mantras. By themselves, however, they are just platitudes and potentially dangerous. If you tell one hundred employees to exceed customer expectations or go above and beyond for your client, you will get one hundred personal interpretations. For delivering a world-class customer experience at every point along the customer journey, to potential customers and loyal customers alike, truly world-class CX organizations remove personal interpretations.

The DiJulius Group has helped hundreds of organizations all over the world create a customer service action statement (CXAS). A company’s CXAS is an organization’s north star for how they treat their customers, a guide to developing the best customer relationships. It is:

A clear call to action of what every employee should intentionally achieve every time they interact with a customer.

When developing a CXAS we have one primary rule we must adhere to: It has to be ATOM.

-Actionable

-Trainable

-Observable

-Measurable

Whatever the CXAS ends up being, as a leader, you can watch a customer service representative interact with a customer, listen to an employee on the phone with a client, or read an email they just sent, and you can say “yes” or “no”. If your CXAS isn’t that easy to answer, it is not a good CXAS.

The How Is More Important Than The What

That is why there are two parts to a CXAS. The action statement and three supporting pillars define your approach to customer service. The action statement is WHAT each employee needs to do, the pillars are the HOW.

The supporting pillars are how that everyone from your front-line employees to the CEO performs daily in each customer interaction. There are traditionally three pillars that support the CXAS:

1. The Expertise provided by your employee.

2. Customer interaction, how we make them feel.

3. Above and beyond, empowering employees with autonomy to do a little more than what is expected.

The pillars are what remove personal interpretation of your CXAS, allowing your team to uphold the highest customer service standards. Let’s examine The DiJulius Group’s actual Client Experience Action Statement.

The action statement is Carpe Momento which stands for Seize the Moment. By itself, what does that mean? When you add the three pillars; Know More, Care More, Give More, now you know how to seize the moment.

Delivering Genuine Hospitality…How?

Another example is, don’t just tell your customer service staff to be present or to provide genuine hospitality during their interactions with customers, without telling them how. Avoid generalities, offer real-world customer experiences examples. In other words, make it black and white and make it measurable. One of my favorite hospitality systems for making a customer connection is the “5 Es.” 

1. Eye contact

2. Ear-to-ear smile

3. Enthusiastic greeting

4. Engage

5. Educate

The top world-class organizations don’t suffer from employee roulette because they remove personal interpretations and literally define what the organization specifically means by training their employees on the how.

Exceptional service that leads to the highest customer retention includes customer service training on soft skills. Not all employees enter the job market with experience in rapport building or inherently know how to deliver exceptional customer service. A company can have the latest technology and superior products but if they don’t have friendly, knowledgeable employees, research has shown that customers will absolutely go elsewhere. Intentionally training customer service staff takes time and effort but the organizations doing so not only reap the rewards of an ever-growing customer base but also happy, loyal employees.

John R. DiJulius III, author of The Customer Service Revolution, is president of The DiJulius Group, a customer service consulting firm that works with companies including Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Ritz-Carlton, Nestle, PwC, Lexus, and many more. Contact him at 216-839-1430 or info@thedijuliusgroup.com.

Published: April 19th, 2023

Share this Feature

Hungry Howie's Pizza
SPONSORED CONTENT
Hungry Howie's Pizza
SPONSORED CONTENT
Hungry Howie's Pizza
SPONSORED CONTENT

Recommended Reading:

Comments:

comments powered by Disqus
Jamba®
ADVERTISE SPONSORED CONTENT

FRANCHISE TOPICS

IHOP
ADVERTISE SPONSORED CONTENT
Conferences
Caesar's Forum, Las Vegas
MAR 25-28TH, 2025

With more than 250 locations (and more on the way!), MY SALON Suite is the #1 salon suites franchise opportunity in North America.
Cash Required:
$500,000
Request Info
It's time for a fresh start. Join Kona Ice today! We're a low-investment, fast-growing business with over 1,500 franchises in the last 12 years. And...
Cash Required:
$20,000
Request Info

Share This Page

Subscribe to our Newsletters