The Chartered Institute of Marketing has created the following framework for (a) specifying the desirable mix of internal, external and strategic components needed by an organisation which majors on service as a source of competitive advantage and (b) evaluating the actions needed by organisations if they seek to establish themselves as World Class Players

The framework involves three major dimensions; your STRATEGY, PEOPLE and CUSTOMERS. Each in turn has four sub-dimensions. None of the twelve factors is optional, and none is more important than the others, although without the STRATEGY impetus it is very unlikely that anything significant will happen.

THE TWELVE PILLARS OF PERFORMANCE

YOUR STRATEGY:

COMMITMENT – You see customer service as a key corporate scorecard indicator, with both transformational and incremental goals, action programmes and top level accountabilities.

CREDIBILITY – You work hard to make sure that your customers have good grounds for believing your promises.

CLASSIFICATION – You segment your customers, periodically review your segmentation profiles, and vary your product / service offer across segment boundaries.

CONCENTRATION – You focus your marketing efforts on your most profitable customers, spending money on the customers who spend money with you.

YOUR PEOPLE:

CAPABILITY – All your people, whether in the front line or not, are recruited and trained against a competency blueprint enabling them to deliver positive, proactive, efficient and added-value service to their customers (internal and external).

CONTINUITY – You have created retention, reward and recognition strategies which encourage your people to remain within the organisation, so that they can establish long term, mutual trust relationships with your customers.

COURTESY – Your people are polite, considerate, tolerant and friendly when dealing with customers.

CREATIVITY – You systematically encourage your people to produce ideas for service innovations and improvements.

YOUR CUSTOMERS:

CONSISTENCY – Your customers always know what to expect from you and this is one of the principle reasons why they keep coming back.

COMMUNICATION – Your customers understand what you say to them; equally, you listen to them when they communicate with you and you actively promote opportunities for two-way dialogue.

COMFORT – Your customers feel comfortable about your products, your services, your user instructions, your helpline, and with everything else which collectively comprises your company’s reputational asset.

CONTACT – You offer customer service at times to suit your customers, not merely at times which suit you.