Are we losing our way in delivering excellent service?

This made us think about the research we have conducted across various industries over the last year, and there is a definite increasing trend of poor service.

What are the contributing factors:

• Many staff have been at home for nearly 2 years. Skills development took a back seat and “on the job” learning from colleagues within, and across teams, disappeared. This meant skills and knowledge sharing were eroded.
• Staff rose to the challenge during Covid and adapted quickly, doing their best to provide excellent service to their clients in a difficult situation. For many productivity soared, with staff working longer hours. However, in the process they were often overwhelmed, burnt out or the boundaries between work and personal life blurred.
• Now there has been a call for many support functions to come back to the office. Although good for development, this has resulted in a loss of hours in the day due to travelling but the same productivity is expected.
• Post Covid, Customers, Clients and Staff alike are having to deal with loadshedding, difficult economic circumstances and financial pressure. The result is increased anxiety and lower tolerance levels.
• Processes have not always adapted sufficiently to the new world of work, which can be frustrating when one has embraced a digital world.

Customers are less willing to accept lower levels of service and yet the culture of excellence around service is being eroded.

What companies did, and how we did it before, doesn’t provide direction for the future given the enormity of change in the last 4 years.

Many staff have been at home for nearly 2 years. Skills development took a back seat and “on the job” learning from colleagues within, and across teams, disappeared. This meant skills and knowledge sharing were eroded.

What companies did, and how we did it before, doesn’t provide direction for the future given the enormity of change in the last 4 years.

What can you do? It is essential to keep abreast of how your customers are feeling. A good start is to engage with them and find out:

• Do you know what they think of your business?
• Do you know how they feel about your service?
• Do staff have the necessary skills for the new world of work?
• Do new staff have the same level of client understanding and understand the company values the same way to ensure good delivery?
• Is your Brand being eroded in any way?
• How have your competitors adapted?

With this knowledge service strategies can be built, bottlenecks in processes addressed, and staff development implemented.

At Livingfacts we have 21 years’ worth of experience in understanding what customers, stakeholders, staff, and suppliers need. We collaborate with you to provide current research and insights on how to remain relevant in changing times.