“Raving Fans”, written by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, is about the revolutionary approach to customer service. According to Blanchard and Bowles, in today’s world it is not good enough for us to just having satisfied customers. If we really want to retain our present customers and attract new customers, we would have to create Raving Fans, which is the ultimate in customer service. A Raving Fan relationship goes far beyond the company’s product/service. Customers are only satisfied because of two reasons; one is their expectations are low and the other is that nobody is doing better than what we are doing now.

We don’t own any customers. Customers just parked in our doorsteps and would be more than glad to move away if they find somewhere better. If we really want to own them, we would have to go beyond satisfied customers and create Raving Fans.

Here are the three magic secrets found in the book for the creation Raving Fans.

(a)       Decide What You Want

When we have decided what we want in customer service, we would have to create a vision of perfection centered on when the customers use the product/service.

Once we have a real vision, what we need to do is to bring down the picture from our mind to the level of what was actually happening in the organisation and see where the bumps and warts are. The perfect vision would not be a frozen picture of the future as customers’ needs and wants change all the time.

We would have to use own initiative and be flexible to change our vision when necessary. Visions would either grow or die. And when vision dies, it’s customer service that gets buried. We have to be ready to change direction when the vision changes.

(b)       Discover What The Customer Wants

Discover the customers’ vision of what they really want and then alter our vision to fill in the gaps if there is a need. The secret to discover what our customers really want is to ask them for their visions. We could be altering a few times before finding out what the customers really want. Instead of just suggesting improvements, we should show the customers exactly what we could do.

There might be some unhappy customers whose expectations are far outside our window and we would not be able to satisfy their needs. We would have to tell these complainers politely that what they wanted wasn’t part of our customer service package. Rather than give them extra time and attention and further diverting the company from the true vision, we should suggest that these customers to look elsewhere where they could find their needs. Good service means looking after every whim of the customers within the window we have defined in our vision and strive to be the best.

(c)       Deliver Plus One

We would have to deliver all the time and there should be not exceptions contemplated or allowed. We might want to start with a limit number of services where we want to make a difference as this would allow us to be consistent in our service.

We could always build towards the total vision once we are successful with one or two things. We should not introduce new things when we couldn’t even get the old ones right. We should not offer something that is too big or difficult to get right all at once. There is no sense for us to do big things if we could not successfully implement them quickly. It would be better to do smaller things that we could deliver consistently. If we promise something and do not deliver, we are cheating the customers.

We would have to meet first and exceed later. Regardless of what we promise, it’s consistency that’s important. Customers allow themselves to be seduced into becoming Raving Fans only when they know they can count on us time and time again. Consistency is critical in good customer service as it creates credibility.

Once we are consistent, ongoing improvement is equally important. The one percent rule is to keep us moving ahead and focused beyond our vision. It reminds us that all we have to do is to improve by one percent. If we improve one percent a week, we will be ahead of more than fifty percent after a year.

The rule of one percent also lets us constantly monitor the customers’ needs and alter our direction when they alter theirs. Listening to customers is powerful. Responding to what customers say is dynamite.

Source : “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. Published by William Morrow and Company. Inc., USA.