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Most organizations have, as part of their business plan. a customer service strategy to create delightful experiences for their customers.
But unfortunately the bold declaration of intent to blow customers away with exemplary service is as far as it goes because organizations quickly move away from their great service aspiration and design a rule system with policies and procedures intended to impose order and control on the customer engagement process.
Credit policies. Accounting procedures. Collections rules. Sales processes. Complaint policies. Order procedures.
Customer Service manuals generally are replete with instructions on how to deal with virtually anything to do with a customer.
In fact most rules in an organization one way or another impact the customer.
And for the most part they are meant to control them. To make them behave a certain way that produces a favorable outcome for the company usually in terms of keeping costs down and imposing a standard way of doing business that applies to everyone.
Rules are meant to control the customer transaction.
What if we took a different perspective and created rules to enable the transaction; to allow the customer to engage with the organization the way they want?
Terms that make their experience with us enjoyable and stress free?
There is a huge contradiction when organizations say they are in the business of creating memorable experiences for customers yet construct rules and policies that do exactly the opposite.
It’s time for leadership to be bold and let the customer provide input to the process of architecting the rules. Let the customer control their own destiny with you.
Enable them; serve them.
How about asking a group of your fans to critique your policies and suggest changes?
What not? Are we afraid what they will say? Afraid they will point out the stupidity of some of them?
Open up.
Allow your fans to control you. They do anyway, so why not make it official?
Related: Why Successful Organizations Are Really Good at Doing Boring Things