The document provides an overview of the key components that make up an organization's customer promise. It discusses 9 ingredients that are part of the customer promise: 1) level of customer involvement, 2) product design, 3) consistency, 4) service standards, 5) efficiency, 6) managing constraints, 7) resolving conflicts, 8) impressives, and 9) valuing customer-facing employees. It uses examples from companies like McDonalds, British Airways, and Jo Malone to illustrate how these different aspects can impact customer satisfaction when delivered effectively or ineffectively. The overall message is that meeting customer expectations across all these dimensions is essential to fulfilling an organization's promise to its customers.

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The Customer Promise
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
The Customer Promise
CUSTOMER CARE

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The Customer Promise
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
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The Customer Promise
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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The Customer Promise
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
The Customer Promise is what we promise to deliver to the
customer and what the customer expects from us. When
expectations and experiences match, the customer is
satisfied: we give them what they expect. When, however,
we fail to deliver the promise, because of poor product,
inconsistent standards and indifferent service, the customer
feels devalued and let down. On the other hand, when we
manage expectations and surpass our promise, the
customer feels special, valued and delighted.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THE CUSTOMER PROMISE
The Customer Promise is what we promise to deliver to the
customer and what the customer expects from us.
It is made up of nine ingredients...
1. the level of customer involvement
2. the design of the product
3. the consistency of the product
4. the standards of service
5. the efficiency of delivery
6. how constraints are managed
7. how conflicts are managed
8. the impressives
9. how the customer carers are managed.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
INVOLVING THE CUSTOMER
The level of customer involvement is the extent to which we
can allow customers some say in what we deliver. At one
end of the scale, there may be near 100% involvement, for
example, a management consultancy which delivers exactly
to a customer's specification. At the other end of the scale,
for example in a research project, the customers'
involvement may be negligible.
Customer satisfaction and the efficiency of service delivery
can increase when organisations are able to adapt their
systems to meet customer preferences.
A doctor's surgery changed their appointment system,
when, instead of the Receptionists offering patients
appointments at ten minute intervals, people booked their
own times. Many of the 10-minute slots were replaced by
routine appointments of less than 5 minutes. As a result
overall waiting times were reduced.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
DESIGN
When a new product is being put together without high
levels of customer involvement, the needs of the customer
must be borne in mind.
The features of well-designed products are that they should
be...
1. robust
2. easy to use
3. easy to understand
4. simple
5. with no more than three or four benefits
6. with a minimal number of things that can go wrong
7. with straightforward instructions.
Compare the success of the well-designed biro with that of
early versions of personal computers.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS
To avoid disappointing your customers when you develop a
new design, you need to show them how to get the most
from your product or service...
1. talk to them
2. supply plenty of complete, accurate and understandable
information
3. train your own staff to give accurate information
4. draw your customers' attention to what the product can
do
5. help them in how to use it best
6. seek feedback on what they like and dislike and why.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
CONSISTENCY
If you produce something that customers like they will
expect the same standards again, if not better. This means
you must design a consistently good product again and
again. With a product this is a technical process; with a
service, this is a human process.
The fast-food chain McDonalds produces such a consistent
product that you can expect the same food and service
world-wide, whether you are in Moscow, Los Angeles, New
York or London.
McDonalds achieves this feat by ruthlessly researching and
setting a standard for every aspect of the product, be it a
floor-cleaning material, a waiting time for customers, a
frying fat or a potato variety. They then train their staff in
what is called the Hamburger University to deliver to the
agreed standards. In this way, McDonalds rule out anything
going wrong.

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Customer Care
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STANDARDS
Rigorous and consistently-applied standards are essential
for delivering a product whose quality is part of the
customer promise. Setting rigorous standards in face-to-face
service, however, does not always lead to satisfaction, since
customers often expect immediate responsiveness to their
needs, not unbending standards.
There are three kinds of service standard: rigid standards
which allow for no deviation; flexible guidelines which allow
for staff to use their judgment if need be; and total
discretion. Which kind of standard is best for any business
depends on whether you are delivering a tightly-specified
product or loosely-specified service; whether you are bound
by laws, rules and agreements; whether your contact with
the customer is close or distant; and whether your staff are
trained, skilled and motivated enough to offer excellent
personal service.

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Customer Care
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RIGID STANDARDS
Rigid standards are designed to produce a consistent
reliable product that is right first time and right every time.
There are advantages and disadvantages in sticking to rigid
standards.
Pros: Rigid standards provide consistency across each
delivery unit; are the basis for training; and can lead to a
quality standards system.
Cons: Rigid standards may allow employees no room to deal
with special customer requests; may call for a heavy
investment in research, records and training; and may
become tedious, boring and repetitive for staff to follow.
Fixed hotel standard if a guest room is not ready: You must
give an apology; offer a free cup of tea or coffee; find out
when the room will be ready and inform the guest; offer
storage facilities for luggage; never send a guest to a room
that is not ready.

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Customer Care
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FLEXIBLE STANDARDS
Flexible guidelines offer a half-way house between rigid
standards on the one hand and complete discretion on the
other.
Pros: Being flexible can provide the best of both worlds: a
common approach to dealing with service issues by
acknowledging the guidelines and the personal touch by
bending them just a bit to suit a particular customer.
Cons: Being flexible means there may be inconsistency
between what you get at different locations at different
times.
Example of flexible guidelines if a hotel room is not ready: If
a guest's room is not ready, check whether they need to
occupy it at once. If they do, take steps to alert the
Housekeeper and put matters right. If not, offer the services
of the hotel while they wait.

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DISCRETIONARY STANDARDS
Employee discretion allows staff to decide on the spot what
the best service solution to any problem is.
Pros: Discretion enables staff to use their best judgment in
dealing with a problem; it allows for the personal touch; and
it can create individualised and so, unexpected service.
Cons: Staff need to be fully familiar with the range of
possible solutions. This means they need to be well-
informed, well-trained, skilled to recognise opportunities
and handle them; and motivated to do this on behalf of the
organisation.
Example of employee discretion if a hotel room is not ready:
If a guest's room is not ready, find out if the guest needs it
at once and, if they do, take whatever steps are necessary to
ensure customer satisfaction, without unnecessarily
exceeding normal procedures.

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Customer Care
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SERVICE STANDARDS
Writing down the standards of service is necessary for a
consistent approach and the realisation of high standards by
everyone. These are examples of service standards for an
airline's flight attendant crew:
1. Timeliness: drinks are served 40 minutes after take-off
2. Organised Flow: passengers are helped to stow their
baggage when in difficulty
3. Anticipation: passengers with infants are told about the
baby-changing facilities
4. Tone Of Voice: interest in passengers is shown by
varying the tone of voice
5. Body Language: eye contact should be made with
passengers when talking to them
6. Attentiveness: window shades are pulled down when
passengers fall asleep
7. Tact: children are called by their first name, adults by
their title and surname.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
EFFICIENCY
Customers do not expect to have to pay for your mistakes or
inefficiencies. In a competitive world, where your rivals are
able to be more efficient than you, customers will go to
whoever gives them value for money.
There are ten areas where you should regularly check
whether you are unnecessarily wasteful.
1. lengthy set-up times
2. delays and waiting times
3. unnecessary movement of goods and materials
4. over-production
5. waste
6. bottlenecks
7. gaps
8. providing things the customer doesn't want
9. untidiness
10. materials deteriorating.

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CONSTRAINTS
Constraints are limitations on what your customers can do.
They may be for reasons outside your control, for example,
legal restrictions, temporary safety restrictions, and
emergencies. Or, they may be for reasons within your
control, for example staff shortages, untrained staff or poor
planning.
A stately home opening to the public found itself heavily
constrained when visitors arrived to find some rooms not
open, building work still going on, staff unsure of what
facilities where available and people refused admission
because of limits on numbers allowed in. Needless to say,
there was disappointment all round.
Whatever the reason for a constraint, customers tend to be
forgiving if they are not excessively inconvenienced and if
they are kept fully informed. A constraint can even offer an
opportunity for scoring a successful customer "hit".

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Customer Care
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CONFLICTS
Conflicts are an inevitable part of customer service when
there is a wide range of customer needs.
They are likely to occur when one type of customer with
one set of needs is in conflict with another type of customer
with a completely different set of needs.
An example of conflict might be a public session at a
swimming pool where serious swimmers find themselves
unable to swim because of fun swimmers.
Customers naturally turn to customer service staff to detect
and deal with conflicts, thus giving staff the opportunity to
score a customer care success.

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DISASTER TO TRIUMPH
Research by British Airways into customer attitudes towards
constraints and conflicts discovered that satisfaction or
dissatisfaction depends not so much on the problem itself
but on how staff handle it.
1. when asked what contributed to their dissatisfaction
about a constraint, such as a flight delay or air
turbulence, only 30% said it was the problem itself,
whereas 70% said it was the way staff handled it.
2. when a conflict is resolved or a constraint explained,
only 39% of passengers said their satisfaction was due
to the solution; and 61% due to the way staff dealt with
it.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
IMPRESSIVES
The "impressives" of customer service are the things that
reassure us that we are getting a good service. They don't
always produce the main result, but they contribute to how
we feel.
A GP may see a patient and immediately make a diagnosis
and decide on a treatment. The patient on the other hand
may not feel happy until the doctor has taken her blood
pressure, pulse and temperature, prodded and poked her
and reassured her with some words of comfort.
It may not seem efficient, but managing "impressives" are
an essential part of meeting the customer promise. It is a
good idea to build into your customer care programme a
regular review of everything that happens to the customer
from joining you to leaving you and asking yourself the
question: what impression does this give?

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THAT FEEL-GOOD FEELING
At the back of every potential customer’s mind is the
thought that their interaction with you could be either
pleasant or unpleasant. So make sure it’s pleasant by
building in a planned pleasurable moment.
Jo Malone is a London-based fragrance and skin-care
company. When you visit one of their stores, you’ll be
invited by a consultant to try out a product which includes
washing your hands in beautiful basins and drying them on
high-class towels.
The consultants are trained to make customers feel that
they have unlimited time just for them. As a result,
customers experience sheer pleasure and come back again
and again.

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VALUING THE CUSTOMER CARERS
Your staff, whether at the front-line or backstage, are the
key players in whether you deliver the customer promise or
not. Not only can they make the daily difference to what
happens to customers, but their store of knowledge about
customers is the gold on which your business's future
depends.
Thomas Watson, president of business machine company
IBM, said: "All the value of our company is in its people. If
you burnt down all our plants and just kept our people and
information files, we would soon be as strong as ever. Take
away our people and we might never recover.“
Investing in staff, their training and knowledge, their
personal self-esteem and development is a way of investing
in customer care.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
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