Genuine excellence or just lip service?

Genuine excellence or just lip service?

Andi Muh. Sadat
Contributor
Jakarta

At certain hotels you may have experienced their royal
treatment right from the moment you arrive. A friendly, smiling
bellboy opens the door of your car and greets you.

Your baggage is attended to with care, then you are escorted
to your room and there a welcome drink and a basket of fresh
fruit awaits you. During your stay at the hotel, you also find
the entire management and staff helpful and courteous.

Soon you realize that all this is not some sort of glossy
appearance on the surface, but is rooted in their sincere spirit
in serving all their guests. The result is obvious: The
satisfying experience turns into indelible memories of the hotel
in its entirety.

A world apart from modern hotels, Sampireun village also
offers a similar treatment based on the concept of excellence in
service. Three hectares in area, located on the outskirts of
Garut in West Java, about one-and-a-half hours by car from the
provincial capital, Bandung, this scenic and serene village
boasts a lake, which is home to various fish, especially
goldfish. A number of traditional cottages surround the lake,
where a couple of wooden boats are ready to take passengers for a
cruise on the calm water.

"Here, at Sampireun village, we combine both excellent service
and an experiential marketing concept. We offer not only the
scenic beauty of our village with its cool weather, but also its
serenity, and, most important, our centuries-old friendliness
that differentiates our village from modern resorts, or even
other traditional holiday destinations," said village chief Adji
Saptadji enthusiastically. The high occupancy rate of the
cottages is proof of the successful blending of the concepts.

One of Jakarta's star-rated hotels, Hotel Santika, also offers
its guests a unique experiential atmosphere: nuances of
traditional Betawi culture, which is associated with native
Jakartans. The Borobudur, another star-rated hotel in the city,
offers an array of customized services that include nannies or
baby-sitters if required. These are just two examples of how far
hotels may go to provide their customers with quality service.

On the contrary, you may have had a harrowing experience,
similar to what one of my colleagues went through. It is a story
of inconsistency in quality of service that leaves customers
dissatisfied. My colleague purchased a brand-new motorcycle from
a dealer in South Jakarta. Unfortunately, in fewer than three
months, its engine broke down. Feeling confident with the three-
year warranty, he immediately lodged a complaint. But a month has
now passed and the complaint has remained unsettled. Using a
variety of excuses, the dealer has not given the customer what
was promised. The motorcycle is nothing more than an unusable,
useless machine. My disappointed friend has a grudge against the
dealer and, worse, the brand.

The above contrasting examples of companies that keep their
promise of quality service and those that do not act on their
"excellent service" slogans serve to illustrate the different
impacts on related brands and company image. Satisfying service
not only make customers loyal, but transforms them into
"evangelists" or those who spread the good news spontaneously and
for free. This type of word-of-mouth recommendation is one of the
basic and most vital assets for any company, to ensure not only
its survival, but also its growth. Meanwhile, some companies,
which treat "excellence in service" as mottos or advertising
claims without real implementation, are sure to suffer the speedy
negative impact of their dissatisfied customers' complaints. For
such companies, it is indeed a painful lesson.

In today's highly competitive, close to cutthroat,
environment, there is no other choice for the second type of
company but to resort to quality service, the kind that more than
meets its customers' needs.

Tom Reilly, a noted marketing consultant and expert, in his
book "Value-added selling" wrote that providing excellent service
means real added values, which are far different from pricing
warfare that normally comprises discounts, bonuses and other
special price-related offers. He further asserted that a
company's marketing strategy and efforts should embody "a service
philosophy" that is not only disseminated at all levels of the
company but should be an integral part of its spirit and
reflected in its daily activities.

He added that such philosophy is also reflected not only
individually but in the solidity of the entire marketing and
customer service teams. Endeavors should be made, he said, that
everyone in the company feels he or she holds a key position in
the process of delivering a valuable and satisfying total
experience to the customer.

Another writer of best-selling business books, Jim Collins,
who is also a management thinker and educator, said: "it is not
sufficient for a company to be just a good company, but its
ultimate goal should be to become a great company.

Price is no longer the only effective tool, but, more
important, is the consistent creation of lasting values for
customers." When a member of marketing or customer service staff
sells the company's products or services, he or she should
realize that, at the same time, they are also "selling"
themselves. Hence, the service given is not robotic, but provided
sincerely.

In the case of the motorcycle dealer, clearly, providing
quality service was nothing more than an advertising claim or a
motto, framed and hung on their wall. It was not a philosophy put
into action. They probably relied too much on price, which does
not ensure a lasting success. Maybe "excellence in service"
exists only in the minds of one or two top managers, but not in
the spirit of the next level of staff, who are the actual points
of contact with customers.

So, the path to increasing your revenue and reaping more
profits is simple: "excellence in service" to maintain current
customers and attract new ones. Numerous major companies --
owners of leading brands -- have proven the success of this
formula. Hence, there is nothing wrong in being a copycat of
these great companies rather than only imitating their slogans,
which produces a pile of complaints and, in the end, ruins your
business.