Step 2: Develop a strategy for service quality

Once your business has a strong vision statement for delivering quality service, you will then need an overall strategy to guide your business and staff towards this vision.

Your strategy should explain 'how' you will achieve your vision, and include all the practical steps you need to take in order to achieve and sustain high quality customer service.

Ask yourself a series of key questions about your business to generate ideas. For example:

  • What aspects of our service are the most important to help us meet, and even exceed, our customers' expectations? Being friendly? Professional? Reliable? Surprise and 'wow' factor? Recovering well if we make mistakes? Fairness to all customers?
  • What would an ideal customer experience with our business look and feel like? What do we need to improve to achieve this on a regular basis?
  • What areas of customer service can we do better than our competitors?

As part of your strategy, you should also set concrete targets and goals, and timelines for achieving them.