GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE
IN THE 21st CENTURY
by Alan J. Zell, Ambassador of Selling

Who do you serve? You serve customers, usually thought to be the potential and current users of any organization's output. But customers can and do come in many variations, customers are those being asked to accept and adopt an idea, information, service or product. Sometimes they are called clients; sometimes they are called patients. Business owners and their advisors are also customers to each other. Both have and are customers of their associates, customers, staff , family, close friends, acquaintances -- and these are all customers to each other. Everyone is asking their customer(s) to accept their idea, information, proficiency, changes, policies, procedures, service or product in return for the customer's time, effort and/or money.

Another way to put it is that everyone is spending someone else's time, effort and/or money. How efficiently one person helps the other spend it will determine whether or not their customer believes they are getting good service. Continued good service goes hand-in-hand with continued good business.

What all customers want is added-value and there are only two ways to give added-value. One, give the customer more than they think they are paying for or, two, do not charge them as much for what they are getting.

Customers want good value as it pertains to other things but they want added-value for themselves. Management wants added-value from their employees; employees want added-value from their management. More importantly, the firm's, organization's, or practice's potential and current customers, clients and patients want added-value from both management and employees.

Helping people spend their time, effort and/or money efficiently is what good service is all about and what business is, and always has been, about. Those individuals, firms, businesses or organizations that carry on this tradition will be the ones that survive in the 21st Century.

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