The statistician W. Edwards Deming once said, “In God we trust; all others must bring data.”
When I begin a project, the first thing I do is gather data to assess the current state of service quality. I do so by interviewing stakeholders such as managers, hourly employees, and, when possible, actual customers.
I also pour through customer feedback on review websites like TripAdvisor, Priceline, and Yelp. And, when available, review proprietary data such as customer satisfaction survey results, customer verbatims, and mystery shop reports.
The purpose of this analysis is to gather data that will objectively point to advantages that contribute to customer satisfaction as well as obstacles that hinder satisfaction.
For the next several weeks on my blog, I’m going to highlight 10 different customer service advantages that have emerged from the data and the ways that companies are leveraging them to enhance customer service.
Here’s the first post: Express genuine interest featuring Neiman Marcus.
