For any company that has put 'customer service' on a pedestal as a core component of their offering and meant it, the recent study conducted by American Express had to have been a great comfort.

For those who missed it, AmEx released something called "The American Express Global Customer Service Barometer" last week and, among other things, it revealed that consumers in the United States were willing to pay a 9-percent premium for what they considered "excellent service."  In some countries, the premium crept up to 11-percent.

The study contained a number of additional interesting nuggets, particularly about the negative effects of a poor customer experience and how likely a single negative experience was to drive customer defection, but the headline was clearly the tangible, measurable return on "excellent service." 

For those who have long considered "service" to be a pillar of their offering but have struggled to put a number on it, this is a soothing headline.  For those who have long wished to make "service" a priority but have been thwarted by those demanding a hard and fast return, this was a strong future argument.  And this is even before you begin calculating in the lifetime value of that customer, the cost of acquiring new customers in the instance of customer defection, etc.

The study provides some reassurance that a.) service is important and b.) service is a worthwhile investment, but also leaves open the question of....what exactly is "excellent" service. And the answer to that, of course, differs by industry, company, brand, target market, etc.  Defining how YOU deliver excellence is the art in customer experience delivery, and there is no "one-size-fits-all" way of getting there.

There are a few questions you can ask yourself, however.

Is there someone in your organization who is responsible for the customer, across departments? (Not a head of customer service that handles issues in a call center, but someone who serves as the de facto customer ombudsmen for the lifetime of the relationship?)

Are you actively measuring performance, both on the customer sentiment side (i.e., voice of customer feedback, surveys, communities) and the operational compliance/service delivery sides (quality assurance evaluations, mystery shopping).  What are you doing with this data?

If you walked up to a line-level employee in your company, would they be able to articulate clearly what is expected of them in terms of serving the customer?  Would they be able to do it?

How you answer those questions probably provides a good bit of insight into your answer to the question "what size fits you"...and how close you are to making that fit.  It isn't always easy or quick, but it's worth it.  There's a payoff.  Now with numbers.

By Zach Conen, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Feedback? Email Zach Conen at zach.conen@lraworldwide.com.

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