certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on traAt one time or another, all of us have been aggravated by bad customer service. The complaints are familiar: the dry cleaner who refuses to accept responsibility for staining your shirt; the salesperson who talks to a friend on the phone while handling your transaction; the hotel clerk who treats you like a trespasser instead of a guest.

The list goes on. And it happens all the time. Poor customer service is so rampant in this country that we’ve come to expect it.

Maybe that explains why most disgruntled customers don’t bother to complain to organizations that don’t give them quality service, they simply take their business elsewhere. They’d rather walk than talk.

Yes, I know, you’ve heard this before. Just as you’ve heard about the research revealing that unhappy customers do talk to their friends and family. According to customer satisfaction research studies, the average unhappy customer will tell nine or ten people about the poor service he or she received. In other words, large numbers of dissatisfied customers are routinely deserting organizations that displease them and are encouraging their friends to do likewise.

It’s a familiar message. You’ve heard it, your children have heard it, your dog has heard it; for the past few years everybody has heard it. Service excellence! That’s what consumers need!

Companies have certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on trai

The list goes on. And it happens all the time. Poor customer service is so rampant in this country that we’ve come to expect it.

Maybe that explains why most disgruntled customers don’t bother to complain to organizations that don’t give them quality service, they simply take their business elsewhere. They’d rather walk than talk.

Yes, I know, you’ve heard this before. Just as you’ve heard about the research revealing that unhappy customers do talk to their friends and family. According to customer satisfaction research studies, the average unhappy customer will tell nine or ten people about the poor service he or she received. In other words, large numbers of dissatisfied customers are routinely deserting organizations that displease them and are encouraging their friends to do likewise.

It’s a familiar message. You’ve heard it, your children have heard it, your dog has heard it; for the past few years everybody has heard it. Service excellence! That’s what consumers need!

Companies have certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on tra

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Yes, I know, you’ve heard this before. Just as you’ve heard about the research revealing that unhappy customers do talk to their friends and family. According to customer satisfaction research studies, the average unhappy customer will tell nine or ten people about the poor service he or she received. In other words, large numbers of dissatisfied customers are routinely deserting organizations that displease them and are encouraging their friends to do likewise.

It’s a familiar message. You’ve heard it, your children have heard it, your dog has heard it; for the past few years everybody has heard it. Service excellence! That’s what consumers need!

Companies have certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on tra

satisfied customers are routinely deserting organizations that displease them and are encouraging their friends to do likewise.

It’s a familiar message. You’ve heard it, your children have heard it, your dog has heard it; for the past few years everybody has heard it. Service excellence! That’s what consumers need!

Companies have certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on tra

certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on training programs aimed at improving their employees’ service skills. Customer service has been woven into the fabric of so many corporate credos you’d think abrasive employees would be an extinct species by now.

Yet despite all of this, only a handful of organizations have managed to achieve a standard of consistently excellent service. For some reason, it just isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I think the problem is this: A lot of companies operate on the basis of some pervasive myths that make it difficult if not downright impossible, to achieve first-rate customer service.

1. The quality myth

“Pay attention to quality, and customer service will take care of itself.” Many organizations focus a lot of effort on manufacturing quality. Quality gurus like W. Edwards Deming, Philip Crosby, and Genichi Taguchi have helped hundreds of companies use techniques such as statistical processes control to increase the quality of their products dramatically. But these efforts are often thought to be the sole answer to remaining competitive.

Reality: Quality and service are interdependent. It’s impossible to describe quality adequately without considering it from the customer’s point of view. If your product can’t do what your customer wants it to do, it doesn’t matter if your engineering department is proud of its innovative design and your