Good customer service is a service experience that goes above and beyond to meet the needs and expectations of customers, leaving them with a positive and lasting impression of the business. It is characterized by personalized, efficient, and effective support that helps to build trust and loyalty between the business and its customers. Good customer service is also proactive and anticipatory, addressing potential issues and concerns before they become problems, and ensuring that every customer feels valued and appreciated. Here are some aspects of good customer service.

Adaptability
A hotel that works hard to handle special customer requests such as a late night request to move rooms due to perceived problems.

Apologies
A call center (or online chat) employee who apologies immediately when the customer is inconvenience or complains of a perceived problem.

Authenticity
A restaurant that intensely cares about food, dining experience and service as opposed to end-goals such as profit.

Awareness of Competition
A large IT consulting company that doesn’t become arrogant and complacent about the competition such that they retain a sense of humility and urgent need to deliver customer results.

Competitive Spirit
An airline that thanks customers for their business and acts with knowledge that customers have many other choices.

Creativity
Front desk staff who can’t fulfill a customer request for a room change but find another solution to the customer’s problem with the room.

Cultural Competence
Airline staff who speak multiple languages and are good at dealing with customers from any nation and background.

Customer Advocates
A customer service representative who reports a common design complain to the business unit and product design team that can fix it.

Customer Experience
A cafe manager who politely asks a disruptive customer to leave as they are ruining everyone’s enjoyment of the cafe.

Customer is Always Right
A restaurant that takes the pragmatic stance that something is a problem if the customer perceives it as a problem. For example, if a customer thinks your best table isn’t good and wants to sit near the bathroom, don’t argue.

Deep Change
Addressing the root cause of low customer satisfaction as opposed to the symptoms. For example, an airline that upgrades to newer, more reliable aircraft to improve service levels.

Exception Handling
The process of making reasonable exceptions to policy to benefit the customer. For example, an airline that only accepts payment by credit card for food that has a policy of giving food for free to children traveling alone and others without a credit card.

Extra Distance
A mechanic who provides customers with detailed answers when they ask for advice on a separate problem with a vehicle.

Friendliness
A mover who maintains a helpful, approachable and friendly demeanor towards customers such that they regularly achieve high customer ratings.

Initial Response Time
A real estate agent that gets back to a customer in minutes after an email inquiry.

Packaging & Presentation
A department store that offers gift wrapping that is professional to the extent that few customers could wrap as well.

Passion for Service
Employees at a call center who enjoy their work due to an unusually positive team culture and leverage to solve customer problems such that dissatisfied customers are uncommon.

Plain Speaking
Technical support that explains a problem without dumbing it down or engaging in needless technobabble.

Polish
A waiter at a restaurant who has refined every detail of service such as proper placement of things on tables such that they help to create a fine dining experience.

Politeness
A waiter who addresses customers with respect and polite distance.

Professionalism
A salesperson who is professional such that they dress well, speak well, act well and are knowledgeable about their industry, product and customer.

Rapport
A banker who easily establishes rapport with customers due to their personal presence and inherent charm.

Resilience
A bouncer at a nightclub who handles difficult people in a reasonable way without loosing their composure or becoming stressed out.

Respecting the Intelligence of the Customer
Taking customers seriously when they request information. For example, an airline that provides passengers with detailed reasons for a flight delay and conveys an estimated time of departure with the acknowledgement that there is still some uncertainty around the estimate.

Solving Problems
An airline that immediately presents all customers with a useful list of options when a flight is cancelled including an immediate refund, rebooking, compensation, hotel bookings and so forth without a big hassle.

Sympathy
Trying to understand the situation of the customer at the emotional level. For example, a customer who is angry after being billed incorrectly as they feel they are being cheated. In this situation, a customer service representative may immediately apologize and clearly state that the money will be immediately refunded if the bill is wrong before quickly working to identify the billing error or confusion.

Talent
Customer service is a talent that involves difficult to acquire skills such as emotional intelligence, communication, personal resilience, self-discipline and personal presence. For example, a talented bartender in a busy establishment who achieves high order throughput while dealing with a large number of communication issues without losing their friendly and professional demeanor.

Tolerance & Inclusion
Service representatives who treat everyone well regardless of their background, identity or language abilities.

Transparency
Transparency is fair and open communication. For example, a hotel that communicates a renovation project at booking time with precise details on how the customer may be impacted by the work.

Treating Customers as Individuals
Treating customers as people as opposed to a faceless crowd, stereotype or wallet. For example, a theme park that avoids the sense that crowds are being herded by staff.

Turnaround Time
Fulfilling obligations to customers quickly. For example, a restaurant that has food on the table quickly during the lunch rush as many customers have a short and strict lunch break.

Customer service is the practice of providing support, assistance, and guidance to customers before, during, and after a purchase. This can include activities such as answering customer questions, providing product information, offering technical support, and handling complaints and returns. Customer service is an essential part of the customer experience and can have a major impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Effective customer service involves providing timely, accurate, and helpful assistance to customers. This can be done through a variety of channels, such as phone, email, chat, or in-person. In order to provide high-quality customer service, companies need to have well-trained and knowledgeable staff who are able to handle a wide range of customer inquiries and issues.

Good customer service can help to build trust and loyalty with customers. By providing timely, helpful assistance, companies can demonstrate that they value their customers and are committed to meeting their needs. This can help to increase customer satisfaction and retention, leading to higher sales and revenue.

On the other hand, poor customer service can damage a company’s reputation and lead to customer frustration and dissatisfaction. This can result in lost customers and revenue, as well as negative word-of-mouth and online reviews. Therefore, it is important for companies to prioritize customer service and invest in the training and support necessary to provide high-quality assistance to customers.

In conclusion, customer service is an essential part of the customer experience and can have a major impact on a company’s success. By providing timely, helpful, and accurate assistance to customers, companies can build trust, increase satisfaction, and improve their bottom line. The following are examples of measurable customer service goals.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a measure of customer experience that is determined by simply asking customers to rank their satisfaction on a scale. Improve customer satisfaction by planning for common service interactions and reviewing ways that service can succeed or fail. Goal: customer satisfaction to 80% or higher.

Churn Rate

Churn rate is the percentage of your customers who cancel their accounts in a period of time, usually a month. Reduce the churn rate of customer accounts by automatically informing them when there is a problem with their service and updating them as to when the issue is expected to be resolved. Goal: reduce churn to 5.7% per month from the current rate of 6.6%

Customer Experience

Measuring specific elements of the customer experience. Increase the number of customers who are granted complementary early check-in by 60% by updating the status of rooms every 40 minutes as opposed to the current process that can take as long as 3 hours.

Customer Perceptions

Measuring specific elements of the customer experience in terms of customer perceptions. Increase the percentage of customers who rate our self-service tools as useful to 65% from the current rating of 15%.

Response Time

The response time for customer requests such as a question submitted through digital channels. This is usually measured as the time from customer request to a response by a person. In other words, automated responses are often not included.
Increase response time for order inquiries by 44% to 3 hours or less.

Turnaround Time

Turnaround time measures end-to-end service times from the customer’s perspective. Decrease the turnaround time for drink orders to rooms to 7 minutes from 18 minutes.

Throughput

Throughput is the amount of work completed in a period of time. Increase the throughput of the customer service desk to 2.6 guests a minute for the morning rush by streamlining the checkout process.

Service Quality

Measuring elements of service quality and targeting improvements. Increase the on-time performance of high speed train services to 99.5% from the current rate of 98.9%.

Interaction Quality

The quality of customer interactions such as the percentage of customers who feel that a question was answered well. Improve the percentage of order cancellation requests that result in a canceled order by requiring partners to accept cancellation requests if the order hasn’t been sent yet. Target: improve successful order cancellations to 70% from the current rate of 45%.

Productivity

Productivity measures such as the number of passengers checked-in by an airline counter per employee per hour. Improve check-in productivity to 23 passengers per representative per hour by assigning staff to help customers with self-service check-in.

Service Levels

Service levels are goals for the performance of a service such as the call abandonment rate of a call center. Reduce call abandonment rate to 8.4%.

Quality Control

Quality control is the practice of measuring and monitoring service quality. Increase quality control monitoring by 40% to 1.2 million calls a month.

Revenue

Customer service teams may have revenue generating functions. Generate revenue from upgrades at the check-in counter of $1.2 million a month.

Sales Volume

Sales volume is the practice of counting revenue in units. Generate 1200 upgrades to business class at the check-in counter each month.

Cost Effectiveness

Cost effectiveness is the cost required to produce a desired result. Reduce the cost of customer referrals by 11% to $87.40.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer acquisition cost is the total cost of obtaining a new customer. Reduce customer acquisition cost to $211 by introducing rewards for customer referrals.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value is the average total spend of a customer before you lose them to a competitor. This is a function of churn and revenue per customer per month. Increase customer lifetime value to $5,000 by offering more rewards for frequent stays.

Customer Recovery

The percentage of customers who were at risk of leaving who you manage to retain. Improve customer recovery to 50% by offering to wave fees for a year when customers of more than 5 years try to cancel their accounts.

Share of Wallet

Share of wallet is the percentage of customers spend on a product category that goes to you. Increase share of wallet to 40% for private banking clients.

Occupancy Rate

Occupancy rate is the utilization of a space for a customer that occurs at a time and a place such as a seat on a flight. Improve the dinner time occupancy rate of the 3rd floor restaurants to 80% by offering coupons to guests at check-in.

Attach Rate

Attach rate is the percentage of customers who accept an upsell offer. Increase the attach rate for inflight duty free purchases to 9.5% by providing a catalog in the seat pocket on each eligible flight.

Ratings & Reviews

Targets for ratings, reviews and social media feedback. Improve ratings for the hotel to above 4 stars on popular travel sites by aggressively offering free upgrades at check-in to fully utilize our inventory of premium rooms.

Feedback & Engagement

Targets for gathering feedback, ratings and ideas from customers. Engage customers to get their ideas. Target: 20 or more customer ideas for service improvement documented by customer advocates.

Complaint Count

The number of complaints, issues or problems that are reported to you by customers. Reduce customer complaints about construction noise by explaining the current situation when they book a room and again when they check-in. Goal: reduce complaints by 50% and improve customer satisfaction by 10% by apologizing upfront and keeping the customer informed.

Service Culture

Service culture are intangible elements of a team that impact customer service such as attitude towards customers. Sample tone, demeanor and professional language to measure and improve the friendliness of staff at the front desk. Goal: measure 5% of interactions, baseline and improve by 20%.