Having stated that, some businesses still seem to excel in customer service and get rave reviews from consumers, surely they have a different strategy.

Internal Customers Remain Same

It is my view that everyone joins a business team to do their best. It is culture of business that affects their performance level. There is an African saying “the boss casts a long shadow” and this is especially true when it comes to standard of customer service we experience in businesses. Everyone wants to excel at customer service, but starts from a different point and performs to cultural expectation levels of business.

The consumer experiences customer service based, in my view, on different levels: Level One: Synthetic Service Level Two: Genuine Service Level Three: Super Service Is it understanding of team and implementation process that make difference.

Synthetic Customer Service

This is based on all team members being trained to provide a ‘customer service’ act. They are given a script, told to remember their lines and to repeat same process with every customer.

This approach is common in fast food industry and is often criticized by many business people, due to its artificial approach. But, in my opinion, it does have a role. Not every one has experience and attitude to provide customer service at level two or three.

Most young people do not have life skills to move to level two or three. The same is true when employing people from a different culture to your target customer.

Companies that provide awesome customer service appreciate that not everyone will be awesome. They therefore ensure they have a rigorous training programme to make sure all team members are trained and skilled at least in level one customer service.

Genuine Customer Service This should be mainstream customer service. It is based on employing a team member with personality and then giving them confidence by providing product knowledge and skills training in selling.

Genuine customer service is often labeled Customer Relations Management. It requires team members to open conversations using “open questions”. They then rely on their listening skills and product knowledge to build a relationship and foster loyalty with customer.

This means it is critical that you take time to stand back from business and objectively analyse it and develop a plan for future.

1.Do a SWOT Analysis on Your Business

You need an analysis process that will work in your business. Most consultants will tell you that a SWOT analysis carried out at least once a year is critical to your businesses success. Do SWOT analysis away from business so that you are not disturbed by day to day business distractions.

Ideally, get your key team members to join you to carry out analysis. A group of 5 or 6 in a team will develop more thought than one brain.

2.Identify Your Strengths

You need to clearly identify strengths of your business as your first objectives. As a group provide answers to following:

•What do we do really well?

•What sector of our retailing adds most to bottom line?

•What are areas of our business where we outperform out competition?

•What parts of our retailing endorses how customers perceive us with positive recognition?

3.Identify Your Weaknesses

Do not start your ‘think tank’ with identifying your weaknesses. Start with positive areas as this builds moral and confidence. But, key is to identify your weaknesses.

You need objective answers to following questions:-

•What areas of your business operation provide most frequent complaints?

•In what situation are we most vulnerable as a retail operation?

•What products or processes provide most problem?

•What products or processes bring in lowest returns?

4.Analyse Your Opportunities

Once your decide on what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can than start planning your future direction. Again, start with positive and look at opportunities.

You will need objective answers to following questions:-

•What opportunities exist to improve internal running of your retail business?

•What are current marketing opportunities that you should exploit?

•What changes are taking place that are external to your business, that will allow you to operate more effectively?

5.Analyse Treats to Your Business