Far from being an aspiration, customer service excellence is now expected. Companies unwilling or unable to embrace this core competency are suffering the consequences.

Factoring in social media’s status as the ultimate lie detector (via reviews, ratings, reports, and forums) and increasing importance of personal word-of-mouth, achieving and maintaining excellent customer service is much more than a “thing.” It’s everything.

A commitment to customer service excellence needs to permeate every service, product, department, employee, vendor, and all other stakeholders. While it’s a lofty objective, this comprehensive mandate has become the expectation of today and the continuing commitment for tomorrow. As a digital label printer, we live this mandate every day.

That said, there are myriad ways to achieve customer service excellence. Following are a few ways that may not spring to mind immediately:

1. Help clients realize their business dreams. The aim is more than meeting expectations. It’s about helping companies achieve their heartfelt aspirations. When words like “nimble,” “amazing,” “efficient,” “integral part of our business,” and “light years ahead of the competition” spring up in assessing a vendor’s performance, that speaks to dreams. This gets done by reliably delivering a quality product on time, right the first time, and with superior service and turnaround times. It also helps to “become the client,” walking in their shoes to the fullest extent possible and anticipating needs where possible before the client has to ask.

2. Show your employees they matter. This requires authentic interaction, candid conversation, and inquiring about their aspirations. That means talking about the good, the bad, the ugly – encouraging full disclosure in a safe environment. It really helps to establish a culture of loyalty and longevity when you make it about them, not just about what you, their employer, require. A “what would you do if you owned the company” discussion can prove highly beneficial. In turn, employees become more motivated, morale is higher, and the job they do on behalf of clients is substantially enhanced. Customer service excellence is achieved.

With the “Great Resignation” still impacting workforces nationwide, this process becomes even more timely and critical to ultimately delivering the best customer service possible. One way to counter current employee flight from companies is finding ways to keep and promote talent from within the ranks.

3. Catch problems before the product progresses. While errors can be the pathway to problem-solving and positive movement, problems are ubiquitous, no matter the industry or company. It’s how and when they are solved that establishes the true measure of a company’s client service excellence. One useful tool is incentive plans focused on ensuring the client would not receive a product they did not want. Also, closely tracking the source of issues and resolution – then ensuring these experiences are shared across the workforce – helps cement improvements. These findings also are incorporated into training and employee development programs. Experience shows that the end result is loyal clients who value service, quality and speed. In turn, they become excellent referral sources.

4. Overlay individual departments with operations oversight that coordinates every aspect of the business – IT, finance, sales, marketing, production, logistics – to achieve optimum performance for the client.

Summed up, this philosophy aims for perfection to achieve excellence. By following through with a comprehensive commitment to customer service excellence, companies sell themselves. It becomes one of the most important ways to grow and thrive in an environment where walking the talk is the norm – not an exception.

About the author: Matt Zeyher is president of Lightning Labels, a Denver-based custom label printer that uses state-of-the-art printing technology to provide affordable, full-color custom labels and custom stickers of all shapes and sizes. Find more from Lightning Labels on Facebook.