Overcoming the Customer Service Syndrome

After reading this book, you will never feel the same about service professionals. They are pivotal in making or breaking customer relationships. However, being a service professional has never been more difficult. In many service organizations, the gap is widening between what they can deliver and what customers expect. Many service professionals are quitting their jobs. Many more, under fire from disgruntled customers, are experiencing unprecedented stress. We call this phenomenon the customer service syndrome (CSS).

The purpose of this book is to provide strategies and tactics for combating CSS and achieving sustainable high customer satisfaction. While customer service is of paramount importance in sustaining profitability, many hospitality businesses continue to struggle with delivering consistent, quality service because it is often treated as a static, isolated event rather than as a function of the total business enterprise. This book is unique because it positions customer service as an outcome of the total system. You will gain an understanding of how various organizational elements (e.g., hiring, marketing, training, support systems, physical plant, human resource practices, supervision, policies and procedures, technology systems, etc.) work together to promote the successful delivery of customer service. You will also learn how to align service expectations and experiences and to create comfortable customer service environments in which service professionals are encouraged to use their talents and expertise.

Overcoming CSS and creating sustainable, quality service experiences requires service businesses to drastically rethink how service professionals fit into the profit equation. They will discover that people who serve others are of paramount importance and are often significantly under-valued and under-invested. Delivering consistent, quality service requires the reeducation of customers about service and the role of service professionals. There is a need to approach the management of the service system in creative and productive new ways.

The last chapter is a 28-day service journal for each reader's growth in awareness and understanding of customer service issues. We wish you all a successful journey through life.