In Ken Blanchard’s book, “Raving Fans,” there are examples of everyday types of services that deliver consistently plus one. They create “Raving Fans” and “Raving Fans” are what we all want. So what does your organization do above and beyond that turns your customers into “Raving Fans”?
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It all starts with an organization’s ability to deliver a quality service consistently - all the time, every time.
This is the most important thing an organization needs to know how to do. Nothing-I mean nothing-is more important to an organization.
The success or failure of an organization will track back to the organization’s ability to deliver a quality service consistently.
How can we know if indeed we are delivering a quality service consistently?
First of all we should have some measurements by which we can determine if we are delivering our service at the desired level.
These are the key ways you can tell if you are meeting and exceeding your customer’s needs.
1. Retention of existing base of contracts
2. Enhancements are being approved
3. Renewal of contracts with reasonable increases
4. Referrals are given freely
5. The project can be used as a reference and testimonial
6. There are no client proclaimed “fire drills” that cost a fortune to fix
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All of the above can and will be achieved if your service is consistently delivered plus one. I have spent the last 30 years spending 20 to 25 percent of my time doing what is normally called quality assurance or more accurately put, to make certain that the organization is delivering consistently quality plus one.
Here is how:
1. Establish a set of objective measures for measuring and monitoring your quality.
Remember, what gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets improved
2. Make it very clear to all that are involved how they will be measured
3. Set aside the time to review all of your jobs (yes all of your jobs) on a regularly scheduled frequency- at the very least every 90 days and the key jobs monthly
4. The head of the organization along with the supervisor and the foreman should be
included during the reviews
5. Review jobs and track the objective scores of each and every job reviewed
6. Tie results to performance review and to bonuses for all that are involved
7. Note what training or resources are needed to sustain good scores and raise below average scores
8. Set objective benchmarks high enough to be worthy of accomplishing and fair enough that they are possible
9. Take the time to explain the importance of delivering quality service consistently
10. There are budgets to maintain here as well and the jobs need to meet the quality objectives as well as the budget for labor and materials.
When you are tracking the scores of jobs with this system in place, you will know exactly where your organization is delivering or not.
I guarantee that if you deliver a consistent quality service, your customers will reward you with years of loyalty to your organization.
Suggested reading: “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard
Bill Arman is the president of landscape maintenance for Valencia, Calif.-based Landscape Development.