The best way to stand out in a crowded marketplace isn't with a cheap price. It's excellent customer service.
BY LYNDA BOURNE, DPM, PMP
Think about your life: The cafés, service stations, airlines, hairdressers and shops you use on a regular basis generally have good customer service as one of the attractions that keeps you going back. Quality and price matter, but friendly and efficient customer service is likely the differentiator between your preferred option and other businesses.
Unfortunately, customer service is a piece of stakeholder management that is frequently overlooked. As part of their communication planning, most project managers develop a list of stakeholders, including customers, clients and end-users, and then get on with the work of the project. But if you want repeat business—and to stay employed—your customer service skills matter.
The challenge is that projects have a wide range of customers requiring deliverables or information from the project team. To be more adept at excellent service delivery, you need to know the three levels of customer service:
1 The basic level is doing what's in the project plan and specification on time and on budget to the correct quality and with good communication.
2 Great customer service means you own your problems and work hard to fix them promptly. This is the approach advocated in the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct as an Aspirational Standard.
3 Exemplary customer service means you help clients avoid problems and fix their errors in the same way you fix your own. This requires two-way working relationships and a high degree of empathy and subtlety. People are invariably embarrassed when they make a mistake and don't appreciate others seeing their failings. However, if you help them as a friend on their team and leave them feeling good about the outcome, you will achieve a better outcome for your current project and find great potential for repeat business.
Focusing on good customer service takes time and effort, and some project professionals might think an easier way to secure repeat business is to lower prices. In 1880, English writer John Ruskin said, “There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little more cheaply.” This is still true today, and trying to win repeat business for your team on price alone is a short-term strategy that will eventually fail.
Most savvy clients have learned this lesson and look for the best value rather than lowest price. One of the major differentiators you can help develop for your organization is a reputation for exemplary customer service. Reputations are fragile and take time to build. But in a crowded market, a reputation for helping your customers succeed is a key differentiator to win the next order.
Do you have what it takes to move to the next level of customer service? If not, ask your favorite hairdresser or barista what his or her secret to excellent customer service is. PM
Lynda Bourne, DPM, PMP, is the managing director of Stakeholder Management Pty Ltd. and director of training at Mosaic Project Services Pty Ltd., both in Australia. Dr. Bourne graduated from RMIT as the first professional doctor of project management.