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A great focus for improving your customer service

There are lots of ways of improving your customer service, but few sharpen the mind as much as entering your organisation for a national customer service award.

Perhaps it’s time to make that step? You can now enter for the 2008 National Customer Service Awards – and see how you measure up against some pretty tough competition.

And it’s not all about the fame (or vanity) involved in winning an award. Something like working towards the National Customer Service Awards can have a major impact on how you think about customer service. For one, it gives you a tangible goal – even those more cynical employees who think that customer service is an ephemeral touchy-feely thing will feel much more positive about it when they are working towards a national award.

Driving towards an award makes it easier to set timescales and goals – so that customer service isn’t something which just ‘drifts’. It helps to boost morale, pulls people together and encourages people to brainstorm new customer service ideas – it helps them want to take part; want to belong.

It’s not a cakewalk – as a judge of the awards for many years, I can tell you that the standards are extremely high – and really sets aside those who enter from the many organisations which believe that lacklustre service is still acceptable.

Great customer service is a fantastic differentiator for a business, but is so difficult to get right. Entering something like the National Customer Service Awards isn’t just a chance to win a trophy – it’s an opportunity to reinvent the way you deliver customer service and to raise the bar, trouncing the competition.

If you’re already delivering excellent service, then why not take things to the next level? If you’re not confident that your customer service is of a standard to land a national award, then why not take charge and do something about it?

Either way, a review of your current customer service and a focused customer service training plan – combined with some innovative ideas for delighting customers and exceeding their expectations – could set you on the rails for a right award.

You can find out more about the awards on the National Customer Service Awards Web site.