Delivering service excellence in today’s competitive landscape

In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, it is simply not enough to present your products and services and hope for the best.

With a landscape crowded with competitors, along with the digital age making it seamless for consumers to shop around for products, it is becoming crucial for organizations to offer customers something of value to stand out from the oversaturated crowd.

But how does one do this? It seems the key is in a business’s ability to provide customer excellence. The consumer of today demands a shopping journey which epitomizes value and experience.

But surprisingly, not everyone is as concerned with the delivery of customer satisfaction as others are. But those businesses who do not cave into the pursuit of profits above all else will emerge as winners in this ruthless business climate.

Developing a culture of excellence must be based on a comprehensive framework that ensures excellence is not just a temporary phase in a bid to convince the world you’re customer-centric.

Rather, excellence becomes engrained into all business processes, becoming a natural habit which will inevitably lead to a growth in happy customers and an increase in sales.

As the famous philosopher, Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

TechHQ spoke with Oded Ran, CEO of TouchNote, the world’s most popular postcard-sending app, on the topic of digital transformation and the importance of customer service excellence. Here are three tips Ran shared with us:

The key to customer service excellence is your employees

According to Ran, the key to building a great business and a brand people love is the employees you bring into the business.

“Our biggest investment has been in people. We’ve been recruiting the best talent around, across product, engineering, growth, design, and operations. We recruit talented, thoughtful people who can provide the best customer experience possible”

“Programming languages and development platforms come and go, so if you can get the company culture and values right – and hire the right talent – that’s the key to sustaining growth,” explained Ran.

Listen to the needs of your customers

Simply lending a listening ear to your customers can truly revolutionize your business. Many companies make the mistake of focusing too much on the product or service and neglect listening to what their customers are telling them.

The goal of any business is to make money. But this objective is made a whole lot easier when businesses listen to and understand the needs of customers.

Actively reach out to customers in order to uncover their needs. Ask questions, conduct surveys, and email feedback forms.

With the rise of social media, it is now easier than ever to engage with your customers. In fact, your customers are just waiting to be heard on there- so there’s really no excuses.

Listening to the needs of customers is something that is engrained in TouchNote’s culture.

“We listen to our customers so that we’re always improving the app to make sure that they’ll love sending something special with us,” Ran told us.

Providing value to peoples lives

What will make a business of today stand out from the rest is its ability to add value to an individuals life.

What does your product offer that another does not? How will it benefit the customer? Why should a customer choose your brand over a competitor?

These are all questions you should be asking yourself.

This is something which has enabled TouchNote to become so successful. The company has managed to marry the traditional-style postcard with the digital ease of delivery.

Technology is at its best when it enhances the important moments in our lives, and that’s why TouchNote has done so well.

“We’re giving people a tangible, more personal and private, and far more meaningful and thoughtful way for people to keep in touch with the people they care about,” explained Ran.