Delivering Quality Service Begins with “Doing What You Say You Are Going To Do”
Certain principles endure. When it comes to your organization’s performance in delivering quality service, “do(ing) what you say you are going to do” is one of the core trust-building principles customers value most. No one enjoys the inconvenience of needing to repeatedly call back, check-in, talk with different people each time, re-explain, and feel like they’re getting the runaround as they await a response to their issue or inquiry.
All service-intense businesses have gaps in the quality-of-service they deliver. Addressing those gaps catalyzes organizational commitment and energy to close them - and improves the perception of your service quality in the eyes of customers. Superior, market-leading service quality underpins distinctive competitive positioning, brand identity, sustainable competitive advantage, and profitability.
In Delivering Quality Service, Valarie Zeithaml, PhD and her research co-authors identified five (5) gaps at the root of poor customer-perceived quality in service businesses. Over the coming weeks, I will identify and discuss each of the gaps in the Zeithaml gaps model.
Delivering Quality Service is essential to the success of your business. For starters, challenge yourself by asking, “How consistently does our service-oriented business do what it says it is going to do?”
Are you mind(ing) the gaps in your service quality?
Market/Business Strategy Consultant | Advisor to Owners/Executives | Innovation Adoption Specialist | Marketing & Sales Effectiveness Catalyst| Sales Trainer | Coach to Aspiring Consultants | Public Speaker | Author
2 年The Zeithaml "Delivering Quality Service" in my opinion, is the largest vein of unmined gold in the B2B world - particularly for high-service content businesses (banking, insurance, law, finance/accounting, consulting). It's not just a theory, it's a statistically researched model, whose widescale lack of awareness, understanding, and adoption are apparent to each of us every day as we travel both our business and personal consumer journeys. You're on to something big, Joe. As a B2B Market Strategy Consultant, I personally appreciate your efforts to help B2B firms understand and adopt its principles.
President & CEO at Spirit Energy Services, LLC
2 年Awesome Joe! Looking forward to more.
Helping Leaders Accelerate and Align Leadership, Strategy, Learning and Culture > Management Consultant > Organizational Architect > Coach > Facilitator > Speaker > Learning & Development Champion
2 年Great article Joe! From my days as a Quality Auditor at Sundstrand Aerospace, and beyond, asking the right questions to the right people (our customers) are vital in understanding how they perceive quality!