Setting Sales and Service Targets

An important aspect of developing and maintaining the service strategy in your store is to establish your current position. While, customer feedback can indicate your customer's expectations, it is not enough. To be effective, customer feedback must be compared to the level of service you provide. This comparison will identify any gaps in your service strategy and form the basis for any service improvement strategies.

Customer Feedback and Service Gaps

Customer feedback can show you if there are any gaps in your customer service strategy. These gaps could include the following areas:

• Is what the store thinks a customer wants actually what the customer wants?
• Does the quality of the service being delivered match what the customer thinks is being provided?
• Do the customer's expectations of service quality match your actual performance?
• Do your service promises match your actual delivery?

When you have measured the satisfaction level of your customers, you must analyse the results. Once this information has been examined, you can either implement the improvements suggested in the feedback or follow up the customers so they can expand on their comments if necessary.

This process will also provide your team with an indication of the effectiveness of their performance and/ or provide benchmarks for their future performance.

Establishing Service Targets

Service targets are the result of service gaps that you have identified through:

Customer feedback. Complaint records. Team member suggestions. Management feedback

When the service targets are identified they must be:

1. Clearly developed to address the gaps.
2. Prioritised to address the most critical issues.
3. Implemented across the company

Before you commit your team to the new service targets, you need to ensure that they are appropriate. If possible, it's a good idea to get customer feedback on the proposed changes. For example, you might ask them 'If we implement these changes, will that solve the problem for you?'

This additional feedback is useful if your perception of the solution is different from the customers. This would avoid implementing a 'solution' that could have damaging effects on your sales and your customer's satisfaction.

Communicating the Service Targets

When the service target has been developed, the strategy to implement it must be communicated to all the people that will be affected by it.

Just as it is important to clearly define the new target and it's implementation strategy, it is also important to ensure that it is communicated effectively to everyone involved. This means choosing the most appropriate method of getting your message across to your team.

Do you communicate it in a memo or would a team meeting be better?

Questions to consider when planning your communication are:

'How can this new target be instigated in the best time frame with the least cost involved and still maintain a high level of success?' 'Who needs to be told?' 'What is the most efficient way to tell them?' 'Will training be necessary?' 'Are the procedures the same for higher management and people on the shop floor?'

The quality of your communication efforts will have a major impact on the teams:

• Understanding of the new targets
• Ability to implement the necessary changes
• Commitment to the new targets
• Overall service effectiveness