Delivering Service

Being in a service delivery organisation, I have come across success and failure alike. However it is not till recent times that I have started to put things in perspective. When we talk about service delivery- it is delivering what you promised at the cost that you promised. Once you achieve that- you move on to the next level- which is to understand where is the scope for improving the efficiency- that is the real bang for the buck for our customers. More often than not- we consider service delivery as merely delivering what has been asked of us- we often ignore- the "How" of the service delivery is as important. To explain my point a little better- I often think about the services that i ask for- the amazons of the world, the call centres that i call and the way they respond. and there is one thing that is common between when i feel satisfied and when i feel high and dry- it is "How" was the service delivered- how was i treated- and how was my situation handled. i think most of the customers are always looking for a few key things

• is my service provider listening to me?
• does my service provider empathise with my situation?
• is my service provider working for my benefit?
• is my service provider transparent for all things financials and all things metrics?
• does my service provide give me the confidence that they are capable of the executing the task at hand?
• if their product is faulty- will they be honest in accepting it and work with me to fix it- or would they resort to a verbal duel?

In business everything is about making money- but money should be a by product of delivering satisfaction. of creating value. Creating value for your customers should be the sole criteria. Once that is done- everything else will either follow or be secondary. (Parts of this are attributed to Guy Kawasaki's session on youtube)

if we look at the bullets above and start thinking about what we are doing for our customers- work with our customers to put any path correction in play- i think its very easy to create value and be successful partners in the success of your customers.