In the era of digitalization, organizations have no choice but to transform, to evolve their customer experience, and particularly their Service Spirit. Collaborators have to be accompanied to adapting new postures. Xavier Quérat-Hément, president of the Association ‘Esprit de Service’ France, delivers his expert opinion.
The customer experience, creating value
Business transformation is accelerating due to digitalization. We are currently experiencing an intense phase of acceleration, disrupting the established balance of businesses and in particular their Service Spirit. In an economy where only the product or price is no longer enough to make a difference, brands are turning to customer experience. Today, customers, employees and stakeholders are demanding, compare, want a personalized service based on information given more or less consciously (at least before the arrival of the GDPR!).
It is the quality of customer experience that creates value. This experience clearly depends on the operational excellence of the product or offered service but in particular that “little extra” which we remember and that we will talk about around us. This little extra is a smile, the feeling of being “approached”, consideration and personalization; “They took good care of me.”
The whole organization must be turned to the success of these moments of truth between the customer and the company. This means that the company can evolve, transform, change attitudes, change processes… Agility, flexibility, responsiveness are qualities required to carry out this transformation, and by taking into consideration the capabilities of each person, to go in the right direction. This cannot be done without everyone’s implication. Managers are a key element in accompanying these transformations and develop a Service Spirit in line with customers’ expectations.
Deploying Service Spirit in a business
For management, the challenge will be to make employees aware of their role in customer experience, whether they are in direct contact with the end consumer or not. In customer experience, the “weak link” can be situated anywhere in the customer’s journey, and not just in clearly identified functions like the “Front Office”.
Managers must accompany, reassure and encourage to put teams in a position to succeed. Only trust allows the agility of the organization and the initiative of the collaborators. In short, managers must set an example by adopting good service attitudes themselves. Tools, methods, initially oriented towards “customers”, can be mobilized to measure the internal benefits: customer satisfaction surveys, mystery visits, complaints analysis, data resulting from information systems such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management), concrete trainings, real-life situations, etc.
To deploy a Service Spirit approach, as promoted by the Association “Esprit de Service France” and Extens Consulting, ensuring the commitment of everyone is essential, and particularly of the Human Resource Director. Why? Because he occupies an important role in the transformation process. It is him who will recruit employees with the right posture, ensure alignment between values and behaviors, encourage managerial innovation. It is also him who will value this posture in the appraisals. The commitment of the HRD is a good indicator of the maturity of an organization in its service transformation.
Find more articles on Service Spirit on Xavier Quérat-Hément’s blog: www.xavierquerathement.fr
Retrouvez plus d’articles sur l’Esprit de Service sur le blog de Xavier Quérat-Hément : www.xavierquerathement.fr
Leave a Comment