Client Service as a Competitive Advantage
Excellent customer service demands a price. Are you willing to pay it?
As someone who has been heavily involved facilitating strategic planning
processes with organizations during the last 15+ years, I often find it
somewhat amusing how people answer the questions I pose.
For example, if I ask people, "What is your unique differentiation in the
marketplace?" or "What does your organization really excel at?" They will
almost always reply, "It has to be our client service." Almost no one will
admit to being "lousy" in client service, any more than they will talk about
living in an average town with average kids. Instead I see the "Lake
Woebegone Syndrome." In Lake Woebegone it seems all the women are
pretty, all the men are handsome, and all the kids are well above average.
If while getting to know someone's agency or company, I ask the question,
"If I hauled you into a court of law and accused you of being a 'world
class' client service provider, would there be enough evidence to convict
you?" Many times, unfortunately, their answer is, "Probably not."
Therefore, if so many people think client service and satisfaction is so
critical to the success of the vision and the execution of the strategic
plan,
why is it not usually monitored with the same intensity as the financials?
After all, financials are a lagging indicator (telling what happened after
the
fact) while client satisfaction may be a leading indicator (it can be
predicting what may happen in the future).
Many organizations go through all sorts of trial and error and purchase
various software programs to keep their finger on the pulse of dollars and
cents because they want to know where they are and minimize opportunity for
loss. For years it has been known that "what gets measured gets
done."
If that is the case, why is it that many organizations choose to almost
ignore measuring client satisfaction? By doing so, they run the risk of
losing
established clients to the competition.
Client Service as Overarching Philosophy
In 1960, Professor Theodore Leavitt wrote the groundbreaking article,
"Marketing Myopia," in the Harvard Business Review. To paraphrase, he
basically concluded that the purpose of all business is to attract and
maintain customers while generating adequate profitability today and
improved profitability in the future. That balancing act still holds true
today. How many organizations do you know that are masters at bringing
business in the front door only to lose it out the back door just as
quickly? We have also dealt with organizations that service their existing
business so well that the owners and principals "never get around to
developing new business."
Those organizations and agencies that see customer or client service as
simply a department to be managed rather than a point of strategic
differentiation may be looking at the business through the lens of
short-term focus. So many people that we talk with have never calculated the
lifetime value of a typical insured and even those that have usually aren't
communicating that number to their staff at every level of the organization
on a regular basis. Knowing that number can provide a framework to make
decisions for the long haul and maintain the client relationship rather
than looking at it from a "transactional" basis.
To calculate the lifetime value, take the number of years that a
client/insured usually stays with the agency multiplied by the estimated net
profit
per line of business (auto, P&C, E&O, DB, etc). The total dollars can give
you some idea of what is at risk in the future if you under serve your
client base.
For example, if a typical insured stays with your agency 15 years and has 3
different policies with you each generating $200/year in profit, each
new insured is worth approximately $9000 going forward (15yrs x $200/policy
x 3 policies = $9000) if they are treated so well that they won't even
consider moving to someone else. Now ask yourself, how cavalierly would you
treat a check written to your agency for $9000? Would you do the
equivalent of going into your back yard, digging a hole, burying it there
and walking away from it forever? In essence that is what happens when
clients are taken for granted. The cause can either be by default i.e. not
paying attention, understaffing by design, allowing a lack of systemic
follow-up and follow-through, or it can be attributed to a management team
with so strong a focus on short-term results that they become almost
greedy. Does your organization have a client service strategy? If you
examine your strategic plan, it's necessary to differentiate the agency
strategy and plan from the client service strategy. They are not identical.
Organizations need to implement a "Client Bill of Rights."
Leaders in organizations need to ask themselves if they are willing to pay
the price for excellent client service vs. good client service. Excellence
costs, but it also pays off. Being even a little better than the competitor
pays huge dividends. Yet many organizations are not willing to pay that
price. Instead they are content with processes, technology and staff who are
"good enough."
As mentioned before, "what gets measured gets done." Client expectation
measurements are important, as are ways to monitor them. It is
necessary for organizations to take the time to discover why a client has
signed on with you and not the competition. It's also necessary to
determine what they really want to have happen as part of the client
experience. It is then up to you to make sure you are delivering what your
client wants. Failure to do so most likely will result in the loss of that
client to your competitor.
Once you determine what it is your client really desires, make sure you
match those expectations in terms of pricing and service. Make sure you
are not trying to sell a champagne policy to someone with a beer budget and
vice versa. It's necessary to have processes in place to support
excellent client service from beginning to end. That is, do you have the
right amount of staffing resources to meet their needs? Make it as easy as
possible for them to conduct business with you.
While having the proper talent is vital to ensuring excellence in client
service, it is also known that 94% of failings are the result of
process/system
failures and not people failures.
My car recently broke down. While it was being towed to the dealer, the
towing company damaged another part of the car. The dealer was willing
to go ahead and fix the damage, but the towing company wanted the damage
they caused handled by their insurance carrier. They had a local
agent connected to an insurance company in Arizona. The problem was that the
local agent did not have the necessary claim number or phone
number for the agent handling the claim in Arizona. Therefore, the dealer,
who was willing and able to fix the car, didn't have the information they
needed to work with the towing company. As a result, repairs that could have
been completed in 48 hours took four to six weeks.
The problem was that no one owned the entire client experience; each company
only owned a piece of it. Anytime there is an opportunity for a
hand-off where something can go wrong, organizations often rely on the
client, who has no knowledge of the situation, to be able to handle the
details. It is vital for organizations to own the entire client experience.
Of course, no matter what the situation is, things don't always go smoothly.
Problems arise, that's why organizations should make sure they have
a process in place for "service recovery." That is, if something goes wrong
suddenly, they should be able to recover with minimal damage.
Finally, organizations should make sure their policies protect the right
people. Often, they have policies in place that protect themselves against
the 1% of clients who abuse the system. This makes the other 99% of their
clients who play by the rules pay the price. Many organizations,
unfortunately, don't look at what they are doing through the eyes of the
customers. Rather, they only are looking to protect themselves.
Excellent customer service demands a price. Are you willing to pay it?
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