“Best-in-Class”, Best Practices, or Benchmarking?
Which Way Should You Go?
“Best-in-class” customer service and support is what all services organizations strive to achieve.
However, many experts suggest that attaining “best-in-class” status in all aspects of customer service is well - impossible! Even the very best customer service-focused organizations typically have one - or more
- areas where they are not able to provide “best-in-class” customer support. However, whether a “best-inclass” organization really does - or can - exist, one thing remains absolutely clear: your organization must
do everything it can to be perceived by its customers as being as close to “best-in-class” as possible.
In order to effectively move toward attaining “best-in-class” status, services organizations need to rely
heavily on the formulation, development, and implementation of what is commonly referred to as “best
practices” to support their customer service operations. The United States Government, General
Accounting Office (GAO), defines “best practices” as “the processes, practices, or systems identified in
public and private organizations that perform exceptionally well and are widely recognized as improving a
organization's performance and efficiency in specific areas”. The agency goes on to say that,
“successfully identifying and applying best practices can reduce business expenses and improve
organizational efficiency.”
California State University’s business school further defines “best practices” as the “processes and
activities that have been shown in practice to be the most effective.” Even the Credit Research
Foundation (CRF) defines “best practices” as “the procedures and policies that allow a business to
outperform all others in a particular business process (i.e., customer service).” Whatever definition your
organization chooses to adopt, a commitment to the practice of “best practices” will be the only way it will
ever be able to ultimately attain “best-in-class” status.
However, in order to actually know whether your organization is currently performing at - or near - a “bestin-class” level, it will first need to “benchmark” exactly where it stands with respect to the customer service
performance of other organizations - both in and outside of its field. This, of course, is commonly known
as “benchmarking”. The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) defines “benchmarking” as “the
process of improving performance by continuously identifying, understanding, and adapting outstanding
practices and processes found inside and outside the organization.”
We like to define “best-in-class” primarily as “customer service performance that successfully addresses
the gap between the organization’s performance and the customers’ needs and requirements, and taking
the necessary steps to close that performance gap.” While this may not take you all the way to a “best-inclass” level compared against all industries and all other services vendors, it will at least take you to
where you are providing the highest levels of customer service and support you possibly can.
The GAO suggests the following guidelines as to what “best-in-class” is all about, based on the results of
the benchmarking research it has conducted in the private sector. What the research revealed is that the
most effective ways leading “best-in-class” organizations have used to arrive at that level have typically
involved:
 Providing adequate training and empowerment to their front-line employees (i.e., their field service
technicians, and other direct customer contact personnel) to resolve most customer problems during
the first occurrence;

Making it easy for customers to voice their concerns - or complaints - through a formal, accessible,
and highly user-friendly input and feedback process;

Considering complaints or criticisms not only as “valid” customer feedback, but also as opportunities
to improve current levels of customer satisfaction;

Seeking to maximize the opportunities for problem resolution (i.e., both equipment-, and customerrelated) at the initial point of contact; and

Providing satisfactory closure to the problem event through proper - and quick - communications.
Some of the most valuable lessons learned through the analysis of this government research include the
following:
1. Make it easy for your customers to voice their concerns, and your customers will make it easy
for you to improve.
Nobody likes to receive constructive criticism or have someone complain about their customer service
performance to a supervisor. However, if you accept these occurrences as productive ways to
ultimately improve your organization's performance, then it becomes much easier to accept. As such,
you should interpret every customer-voiced concern or complaint as just another one of your
“marching orders” to improve - or fine-tune - your organization's customer service and support skills.
2. Listen to the voice of the customer.
Customer service leaders demonstrate their commitment to resolving customer concerns by listening
directly to the voice of the customer. But, simply listening is not good enough - customers will also
expect to hear back from you with any and all important information leading up to the full closure of
their inquiry or call. By investing your time in communications with your customers, the payoff will be
an easier path to get the job done - regardless of whether it is a service call, responding to a
customer request or inquiry, or anything else that the customer feels is important.
3. Respond to customer concerns quickly and courteously with common sense, and you will
improve customer loyalty.
Customers tend to “reward” vendors who can quickly - and repeatedly - resolve their problems by
remaining loyal customers. Quick problem resolution can add greatly to the foundation that you are
trying to build in support of customer loyalty - and repeated quick problem resolution will all but
certainly “close the deal". Your organization can develop a fast track toward customer loyalty among
its customer base only if it continually focuses its attention in these areas.
4. Resolve problems on the initial contact - build customer confidence, and save money.
A customer callback that requires two or more company personnel to follow-up will typically cost
much more than a call that was handled right the first time. This is especially true when the call
escalates to involve supervisors or other management personnel, or a second (or third) on-site visit.
Resolving a customer problem on the initial contact can also significantly build the level of confidence
your customer has in your organization’s ability to get the job done. And once you earn this level of
trust, it will be difficult to lose it.
5. Technology utilization is critical in problem resolution.
Your company probably already uses a number of technology-based tools to support its field
engineers’ ability to quickly resolve customer problems (e.g., palmtops, laptops, PDAs, etc.) - but they
need to use them! Typically, in “best-in-class” customer service environments, there are a multitude
of tools and databases available that can be used to identify, report, monitor, and track customer
problems and concerns. These tools should be used - as a matter of course - as support in providing
customers with quick and effective solutions. Remember - your “best-in-class” competitors are
already using them, and you should be using them as well.
6. Continue to train your employees in customer service and support.
Regardless of what customer service training you may have provided to your employees in the past,
chances are they already need more training in order to remain effective. There are always new
conventions, methodologies, and tools being developed over time to support their ability to provide
“best-in-class” customer support - and if you do not keep up with the latest techniques, you will find
yourself continually falling behind in your ability to satisfy your customers - let alone make them loyal
to the organization.
7. Focus on getting the job done; not just dealing with the symptoms.
If routine equipment and/or customer problems are effectively being resolved initially at the front-line,
company management can focus more on improving the core processes, policies, and guidelines that
drive customer service performance and customer satisfaction throughout the organization. “Best-inclass” companies use formal processes to, first, identify the problems and; then, to empower their
employees to resolve them as quickly as possible. In this way, the current repair can be done as
efficiently as possible, and any similar future calls will have a much greater probability of being
performed right the first time.
The main lessons to be learned from approaching customer service from a “best-in-class” perspective are
as follows:
 Satisfying the customer must be your top priority.

View customer concerns and criticisms as opportunities for improvement - not just as problems.

Make it easier for customers to voice their concerns; this will make it easier for your service engineers
to resolve their problems.

Effective customer service and support relies heavily on two-way communications between the
customers and their vendor.

Well-managed customer service and support processes make everybody’s job easier - and
customers more satisfied.
All of the tools you need to become a “best-in-class” provider are already in your hands; but, you have to
make them available to all of your employees - along with the empowerment to use them!
Until next month, keep your customers satisfied!
Bill
William K. Pollock
President
Strategies For GrowthSM
P.O. Box 1024
Westtown, PA 19395
USA
Tel: (610) 399-9717
Fax: (610) 399-9718
E-Mail: mailto:wkp@s4growth.com
Website: http://www.s4growth.com