“We provide excellent customer service.”

Have you ever heard that phrase? Maybe you’ve said it yourself, and yet how often do we really provide great service to our customers?

Anyway, what is customer service?

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that “customer service involves a series of activities to keep existing customers satisfied.”

Woof. That is vague. And who defines what will satisfy a customer?

The JI Rodale Synonym Finder offers these alternative words for service: assistance, help, help, complicity, good deed, favor, one hand, one leg up, benefit, contribution; impulse, promotion, advance, promotion, incidence, recommendation, support and endorsement.

We may sink our teeth into those words, but we’re still sitting in a room alone, or with our team members defining what great customer service looks like without the benefit of customer input. How can we provide excellent customer service or “keep existing customers satisfied” without engaging our customers?

Therefore, the first step in providing excellent customer service is defining what it looks and feels like. A good place to start is to ask your best customers:

What makes you come back?
What experiences do we offer you that are most important to you?
What is the most important component of excellent customer service for you?

The customer may or may not define exactly what their customer service components are, but the conversation will have two important outcomes:

1. The customer will feel valued because they asked your opinion, heard what you had to say, and plans to use some, if not all, of your suggestions.

2. By listening between the lines, you can begin to understand what is really important to your customer.

When my teenage son was little, he and I spent a week camping each summer. Sometimes we went camping and sometimes we visited a camp with cabins. His attention span was short, so he planned great activities for our week; visiting a local children’s museum, a day at the amusement park, carriage rides, forest hikes, and canoeing down the river. Each day was carefully planned with playtime and adventure time. The activities were fun but also expensive and a cheap vacation in a tent often cost as much as if we had stayed in a hotel.

One summer, as we were driving home after our fun-filled week, I asked my five-year-old son what his favorite moment had been. We had visited Santa’s Village and I was hoping you would pick the amusement park as your favorite experience.

“Do you remember that day we sat at the picnic table and colored the Spiderman book?” I ask.

“Yes, I said.

“What.”

“What?”

“That was my favorite.”

Who knows? We can guess what our client thinks is the most important element of the service, but unless we ask, we’re really just guessing. If we base our customer service measurements on guesswork, how can we be sure that we have truly satisfied our customers?

So how do we define the customer experience for our business?

Much depends on the type of business. If you run an online business, your service will be based on how easy it is to navigate your website, walk the fine line between clutter and content, and make sure your words speak the customer’s language.

A service company can be defined more by accessibility. How easy is it really to contact you? Answer your phone or return calls quickly. Do you have email and respond in a few hours? Are you willing to meet the client in his office? Are you moving forward in a timely manner? Do you keep your promises?

A call center will largely depend on the attitude and tone of voice of the call center employee. Can you hear the smile in his voice? Do you overuse the “hold” button? Are they trained to solve problems or will clients have to repeat their story many times down the administrative ladder?

A brick and mortar business has additional opportunities to provide service starting with parking; Is it clean and does it offer many parking spaces? Is the customer received cordially and promptly? Are your staff knowledgeable, helpful and available without having to travel? Is there a suitable selection? Does the store market itself nicely? Have you dusted, vacuumed, and emptied visible trash cans? If cleanliness is important to your customer, seeing an employee’s half-eaten lunch at the cash register could be a defining moment for your customer.

Employees are another great resource for defining customer service.

Who better to help define service than the people who interact with customers every day? Ask your employees what they hear customers tell them. If customers comment on the large selection of magazines in your waiting room, keep them updated. If customers comment on the fact that you provide coffee or ice water, maybe that’s something to go on.

By including your employees in the definition process, you are taking ownership to ensure that it continues to move forward.

A key element in delivering and being known for providing excellent customer service is consistency. Ritz Carlton is known worldwide for its customer service. How did they develop a world-class reputation? At Ritz Carlton, excellent customer service happens every day with every customer and every employee in every location around the world.

What service can you offer your customers each time? Is it something the customer cares about? Create your definition of superior customer service by asking employees and customers what is most important. Once you’ve defined what a great service looks like, it’s time to make it happen!