Every company under the sun believes it offers great service to keep and grow from its customers. It is simple equation and answers two questions Q: why is customer service important? A: If customers are happy, they’ll come back and be will be successful.  Q: What do you want your customers to know? A: We want our customers to know we care about them so that they will keep coming back.  If everyone knows the questions and answers why it is so hard to do? That is what The Ken Blanchard Companies have been trying to help answer and  his book  Legendary Service – The Key is to Care by Ken Blanchard published by McGraw Hill, NY, 2014. Eventually they came up with ICARE.

Ideal Service      – Meeting the customer’s needs on a day-to-day basis by acting on the belief that service is important

Culture of Service  – Fostering an environment of focuses on serving the customer

Attentiveness  –  Knowing your customers and their preferences

Responsiveness – Demonstrating a genuine willingness to serve others as you fulfill their individual needs

Empowerment  – Taking the initiative to implement the service mission

Although ICARE sounds simple, it does have many moving parts and it takes people to do. With moving parts, for example legendary service means consistently delivering ideal service that keeps customers coming back and results in a competitive edge for your organization. Consistently means day in day out and very few people are upbeat every day they are at work. People go through moods and various pressures of the business including those implemented from their boss. In reality, people will look to see who and how people are promoted and will mimic their behavior. In other words, if you are the boss everyone watches how you do or how you do not react to the people below you. This is particularly true of the classic case of vice president meeting clerk. The reaction will do more than the ICARE words.

Another moving point is attentiveness or knowing your customers and their preferences. Are all customers the same? do people try to treat them as the same?  Each moving part has many variables – which people can learn and do better if they are inclined to or actually care to improve.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in another 50 years the ICARE will be exactly the same for its people that implement them. People are motivated by many things, if the company can motivate its people to care then they will have an advantage and as a customer you can look at the company and do their people do the ICARE? If they do not, then it is relatively easy to ask do they have a really strong competitive reasons why they will continue to make money? If they do not, look at the company falling in revenues for it for people will  seek alternatives and the lower the customer service the more the alternatives will come.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.