Service Is The Great Differentiator: How To Build Long-term Loyalty

By Michael Israel, Zuper

In his Grammy award-winning song “Lose Yourself,” Eminem sang, “You only get one shot; do not miss your chance…”. I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about providing exceptional service or losing customers forever when he wrote that song, but the sentiment applies. Building customer loyalty largely hinges on the quality of your customer relationships, and the foundation for that relationship often begins with the first encounter – the “one shot.”

In a previous article, I defined Completed Service Work as going above and beyond what is expected to provide an excellent service experience for your customers. Completed service work asks: “What else can I do here to help the customer?” For example, when a service technician completes a repair job but then goes further and provides helpful hints to the customer on how to get the greatest value from the equipment they have just repaired, or how to avoid similar problems in the future, that technician is creating added value for the customer, beyond the repair work just finished. I’d wager we can all recall instances where a field service technician exceeded our expectations, leaving us with a pleasant and perhaps unexpected sense of cheerfulness and satisfaction. Sadly, for many of us, the opposite is also true.

The concept of Completed Service Work isn’t limited to what technicians do in the field. It encompasses – or should – back-office customer service and technical support functions as well - activities that support the customer throughout their lifetime with the company – or not, as the following episode illustrates.